


Warm in the Cold Hands of Machinery

by HashtagPomegranate



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Genderswap, Happy Ending, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Intentional Asshole, Kidnapping, Post-Avengers (2012), Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26555137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HashtagPomegranate/pseuds/HashtagPomegranate
Summary: Antonia "Toni" Stark doesn't have too many things she cares about, but she's learned she needs to guard those with her life. Which is why Iron Man is a completely separate being she works hard to keep away from her normal life. Then again, letting a bunch of superheros live with her doesn't make that an easy job. Cue intentionally being an asshole so no one connects the two of them. For better or worse.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 35





	Warm in the Cold Hands of Machinery

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be honest, this has been on disk drives of computers for 8 years. I started this after the 2012 movie came out, have made plenty of adjustments over time, some for new information, others just because I'd like to believe I'm a better writer. I'm just at the point where the world is a trash heap and I've always enjoyed re-reading this. So many other people will like it too.  
> But this is basically a Frankenstein's monster of canon, taking what I like from this movie or this comic plotline, because hey, that's what fanfic is for.
> 
> If you feel like I've left out any tags let me know. I'd love to hear what you think.

Toni knew that hand to hand combat wasn’t Clint’s strongest form of fighting. Years of experience also told her that right now, he was taking it easy on her. There wasn’t even a reason this time; no recent injury, no upcoming public event, it was baffling. 

“You know, Natasha is still trying to figure out what you do with all of your free time?” He took an obvious swipe at her head.

What a sad attempt to distract her. The normal speed of her thoughts meant that keeping up a casual conversation was pretty much the easiest thing for her. “Does she not know about my secret sex dungeon?” 

“Do I not know about your super-secret sex dungeon?”

She snorted and dodged another lazy swipe. “So, neither have you have figured out all of my secrets.”

“I think I might know a few more than her.” He lunged towards her, this move less telegraphed than the last couple. But he wasn’t trying to hide his tells… he was buttering her up for something.

As a dodge, so that she didn’t have to continue this particular conversation, she grabbed onto his arm and attempted to flip him over her hip. It was one of the first moves he had met her. All about using the opponents weight and momentum against them. Useful both in the suit and out, Clint’s specialty. 

Dropping gracefully, he continued his roll and ended in a solid boxing stance. 

“I feel like this is going somewhere…” the sentence trailed off, leaving plenty of opportunity for Clint to talk. 

He sighed, as if finally getting to the point was to wearying. There was a short gesture implying Toni should make the first move while he said, “Have you considered letting everyone know you have a second lab. Not necessarily let them down here. But…” 

Toni glared and bounced on the balls of her feet before lunging. Jabbing with her left hand, she attempted to disguise the uppercut from her right. It didn’t work quite the way she had planned, he leaned out of the way of the uppercut and took the jab to his shoulder. 

“just to let them know that…”

“I like to keep certain parts of my life separate from one another.” She danced lightly on her feet, barely managing to move out of the way of a shot aimed at her stomach. “Which I think you already know.”

“It might be a nice easy step to showing everyone that you aren’t an asshole.” 

“But I am an asshole.” The grin showed every single one of her teeth. The fuck-off grin that she gave when someone had crossed a line but she didn’t want to be seen chewing them out in public. It was a grin Clint recognized, a sign that he was crossing into dangerous grounds. Grounds that covered hurts. 

There were many points Clint could have made; that keeping everyone in the dark could sow distrust, that she already lived and worked beside them – that trusting them a little more could be of huge benefit, that trying to live a double life was wearing her down. But, it wasn’t the time to push.

A joke would be the easy route, a route that didn’t quite fit. “Only when you want to be. I’m honestly surprised no one else has noticed that.”

He made another lazy swipe, which she ducked under, aiming straight for his kidneys. He stumbled forward and she gloated, “Maybe I’m just better at keeping secrets than most people thought.”

He rubbed his back and stood stooped for just a moment, “that was one time.”

She scoffed, “You started a fucking betting pool at SHIELD as to when ‘Iron Man’s’ secret identity was going to be revealed.”

Holding up one finger, “I was working off of incomplete information at the time. Your public persona is really convincing.” 

Toni took a mocking curtsey, made all the more insulting by the blue light shining from her sports bra and the sweat dripping from her hair. It was lacking any form of grace or delicacy. It wasn’t that Toni couldn’t break that out, she had been trained from a young age to be graceful. It was a sign she was comfortable. She could only let herself be graceless with the people who mattered. Even the other Avengers were treated to the casual, if infuriating, elegance. All the hip sways and strutting was done without even the slightest hitch. 

This lab, with its modified boxing ring, cot in the corner, and bots chilling by the work benches, was the only place Clint saw Toni stumble. Sometimes the little hitches were over a bot, but half the time it was because she didn’t have to pay attention to her body and instead was glancing at a few different holograms, or chatting with Jarvis. It was the place she didn’t have to worry about her physicality. 

He waved her out of the ring. They were done for the day anyway. He went towards his own water bottle while she rubbed herself down with a towel. “You coming to movie night?”

And then the expected, “Nope.”

Because she couldn’t blur the lines. Enough work had gone into making everyone think she was really as shallow as her public persona. That the comments she made could only ever be biting and sarcastic, rather than fond. 

Clint still had to try one last push. “I’m not saying this as a threat, just a truth in our lives. Nothing secret stays in the dark forever, it might a good idea that they don’t hate you when everything comes to light.”

“But they’re so much fun to mess with.” She dropped the towel on the floor, still not looking at him, and roughly pulled her shirt over her head. “Stop trying to make them think I’m not an asshole, I’m fine with the way things were now.” There was the stony coldness that seemed to invade every room she entered. It was perfectly fine. No part of her quietly wish that things were different. That she could be honest with the people she trusted her life to on a regular basis. That they hadn’t been so easy to push away in the first place. But that was the reality. 

“Well, I know how to keep those special arrows coming. Gotta back up my best buddy.” He nudged her as they walked to the elevator, past the three Iron Man suits she was currently developing. 

She snorted, and reached over to grab something off her desk, “prototype,” she mused, before casually tossing them towards him. “they explode.” He almost fumbled the catch, hearing the word explode causing his reflexes to twitch. One look at his face and Toni burst out laughing. “Ahhh, being your sugar momma is so much fun.”

His face screwed up when he realized what the laughter meant, she was just messing with him. On the one hand, it meant that she wasn’t too pissed off. On the other hand, the minor heart attack she had given him was pounding uncomfortably in his chest. 

“Fuck Toni, why do I keep falling for that?” She shrugged while he continued, “I’ll test them out on the range and let you know what I think.”

“And…” Toni started to speak.

“If anyone asks, someone from SHIELD stopped by to pass these one.” He recited by rote. It was a chorus he heard often enough. He could probably recreate the whole rant about how the horse and pony show was necessary. But Toni was amused at the dry tone in his voice. 

“Perfect. I look forward to your review.”

“I don’t know why you won’t just tell them that you’re in charge of our upgrades. Natasha is getting suspicious at the quality of what you’ve given us. No offense to SHIELD but they don’t have the resources to give us the kind of stuff you’re giving us, especially with how quickly you seem to get things done.”

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Toni hand waved, holding her spare hand in front of the elevator doors, waiting for Clint to stop staring at the other stuff she had half-finished on her work table. “Hey, you think next time you could teach me that thighs of death thing Nat does?”

Clint chuckled, leaning up against the wall of the elevator, it was a short ride but he always appreciated how pissed off Toni would get at the sweat stains he left of the glass. He ignored her glare, “Not my job description. Plus, I don’t think that move would work in the armor.”

“Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a good thing to know.”

“If you want to attack people with your vagina, you’re going to have to ask Natasha.”

“How dare you imply I don’t know how to use all of my feminine wiles.”

Clint chuckled as the elevator doors opened they stepped out, “I’m quite familiar with your wiles.” 

Once the elevator doors closed, Toni opened the door into the rest of her lab. The elevator was hidden in the bathroom she kept down there, one more level of security to keep people from figuring out how much room she actually had. As a bonus, she didn’t allow any staff into the lab so there was an expectation that no one would have cleaned the restroom (as if Toni wouldn’t have figured out how to take care of herself… I mean, she made a robot to take care of that), which meant that no one other than her would willingly take a step in there. Other than the people that knew about her extra level, that is. 

But sitting primly in the middle of Toni’s lab, legs tastefully crossed, glaring at the bathroom door, was Natasha herself. Toni’s right hand immediately reached up to tap twice at her sternum, just above the arc reactor. A tic she hadn’t been able to kick, the ability to remind herself that her greatest strength and weakness was covered. Even as she double checked her safety, Toni smirked. “Were you trying to listen in? Hear anything fun?”

Natasha glared at Toni before softening her look at Clint. But it was clear what she expected, the two of them had walked out of the bathroom together, sweaty and ruffled, “you’re walking a fine line here Stark. Fury is here to see you.” With that, she stalked out of the room. 

Toni couldn’t help herself from watching the sway of Natasha’s hips as she climbed the stairs, “looks like your little girlfriend isn’t too happy with me.” 

Clint shrugged, “Well, I do keep trying to convince everyone that your personality is a defense mechanism. But you piss her off so well, I can kind of understand it.”

Toni shrugged, it was all on purpose, and that way the distaste couldn’t hurt her. That was the chorus that sung in her head, ‘this is what you wanted.’ “You head up, I have a few things I need to do.”

Toni’s agreement with Nick Fury was fairly simple, he doesn’t let anyone know that she is Iron Man and she will make things for SHIELD. The agreement seemed simple enough, but Toni and Fury were used to keeping secrets, and those layers upon layers of secrets made things complicated. 

The oversized personalities didn’t do much to help.

Toni may have kept the arc reactor a secret (she had learned her lesson there, no one knew who didn’t absolutely have to know), but Nick did know about the first Iron Man suit and some of the upgrades. He was also aware of more the details about Afghanistan than Toni was really comfortable with. In her first talks with SHIELD, they offered the cover that Iron Man was her body guard and she decided it was the right path to take. There was less of a chance that the people she cared about would be in danger. Especially so quickly after the catastrophe that was Obadiah Stane. She was so delicate. It felt as if it would take nothing to make her crumble. 

That didn’t mean that keeping Iron Man’s identity secret was easy. Even though Nick had promised that her identity would be kept secret between the two of them, he had told Clint. In the end it was hard to hold that against him. Clint had saved her life. 

And Toni was pretty good at keeping her identities separate. After the mistake of telling Stane, she kept the arc reactor close to her chest. She told Rhodey, but then, Rhodey knew everything about her life. Obviously Clint eventually figured it out (he walked in on her walking around her lab in just a sports bra, and freaked the fuck out when he saw the blue radiating from her chest – and shortly after gave her the miracle drug that helped save her life). Even in the public eye it was hidden. The only thing that changed was the design of the dresses she wore changed from sinfully cleavage colored, to sinfully short. When Iron Man caused her back to turn lovely colors of blue and black she traded her backless black dress for a brilliant purple and draped herself in more diamonds than some small countries could pay for (even with their entire GDP, she knew... she had checked. Yes, she was that vain.). 

She would go out and party, hiding her lack of drinking with bubbling water and putting on a show regardless. Distraction was the name of the game, and she was a pro.

So, the first part of Toni’s half of the agreement with SHIELD was easy. Keeping SHIELD in new equipment like the worlds most advanced Daddy Warbucks was easy given their low standards. Upgrading comm technology and their radar had been the best part of Toni’s week. She didn’t give the gifts too often, even she wasn’t a miracle worker, and the fucking Helicarrier took time no matter what Nick Fury wanted to think. The more difficult part of what she needed to do was to make sure that Fury wouldn’t go back on their deal.

Trusting a spy to hold onto secrets without any leverage not to would be a pointless endeavor.

Getting a written agreement wouldn’t work, not like he would honor it anyway. Toni knew the only way to deal with men like Nick Fury was through threats, but not just any threats, thinly veiled threats. 

Once, early in their agreement, she hacked into the SHIELD mainframe to send out porn through Fury’s personal email. Just to make sure she knew that she was the one who had done it, all the porn featured Iron Man and his Titanium cock (and didn’t that make her want to roll her eyes. The porn industry could understand the difference between Iron and a titanium gold alloy while the major news networks had started the whole “IRON” man moniker, what was the world coming to). The next time that Iron Man had stopped in at SHIELD headquarters, the office got really quiet, with only one person stupid enough to not stifle their laughter. Fury, after glaring at the giggler, had turned his attention to the suit, though she had clearly earned his admiration.

And that was that. Fury could leak that Toni was Iron Man, but Toni had made it clear that she could access anything and everything that SHIELD wanted hidden if they crossed her.

Adding the Avengers into the equation meant there was an extra level of complication, but that just made it all the more fun. She couldn’t just quietly pass off the projects to either the Avengers or to Fury. It was a delicate balance really, making the SHIELD engineers seem even slightly competent. 

It had to look like Fury had some sort of leverage (even if she had more) for making her let the team live in her space. For providing even the meager assets to SHIELD that she did (at least in the public sphere). This led to the meetings that generally took place every couple of weeks. Meetings where he just dropped in for a visit and demanded some project. Fury thought it could be as easy as a simple transfer of possessions, but Toni did always enjoy a production.

Before putting Fury out of his misery Toni puttered around her lab a little bit, grabbing the comms she had recently redesigned. They had fought a sea monster and found out, disastrously, that their SHIELD comms weren’t exactly waterproof. From there it was a stop to her room for a quick shower. The biggest problem was how to dress. Toni did enjoy her comfort when inside her own house, but needed something ridiculous enough to provoke the negative image her teammates had of her. After all, it was the little touches that really showed how much effort she put into their partnership.

She waltzed into the kitchen, winking at Natasha.

“Hey there Spangles,” she said, letting her fingers trail up Rogers' arm as she passed by. “And Sparkles,” she threw at Fury over her shoulder. “It's been too long without seeing your bright shining face.” She reached for a coffee cup, more easily accessible than normal due to the heels she had slipped on. Already she was regretting that choice. Heels should only be worn when at a party with people you aren’t allowed to piss off or when trying to get laid. Otherwise the pain wasn’t worth it. 

But this was one of those meetings, and the heels were a power move. Just high enough to keep the Captain and Fury from fully focusing on what she was saying. They highlighted the definition of her legs and with her leggings and blousy top it was easy for them to think whatever they wanted. So, she settled against the counter with her wonderfully hot coffee and crossed her shins. 

“Stark. We've talked about this. You can't keep missing your consulting meetings.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Didn't we already decide you can't afford me?”

“What's your reason this time?”

Deciding to make him wait, she took a large gulp of coffee, sighing happily. “I forgot?”

“Stark, we put a babysitter on you for a reason.”

“Wasn't it so that I wouldn't crash my Maserati again and possibly lose you your cash cow?”

“Part of the reason that you're only a consultant...”

“Blah blah blah. Not responsible. I know, but I don't really care.” She moved over to the outer edge of the kitchen's island and leaned against it. “Dear Hawkass here didn't get me there,” she grabbed for his ass with the hand not holding her coffee. He swiftly turned away before her hands could find their target patting her on the head and winking. “So I figured it wasn’t really my responsibility.”

There was a moment of silence where Toni would have sworn she could feel the weight of Natasha and Steve’s disapproval. In that moment, she also would have claimed to revel in that weight. 

Instead, she kept talking. “Hawkeye and I were just reminiscing about the first time we met and how wonderfully romantic it was.” A statement purely to piss of Natasha, revel in that. 

“I wouldn’t exactly call it romantic.” Clint shouted from the other room, clearly not wanting to push the boundaries after their earlier talk. 

“Maybe that’s why we haven’t had a repeat performance?”

“I think it’s a wasted opportunity. I know you felt better afterwards.” He stuck his head back through the doorway.

“Like I had been born again.” She let a mocking eyebrow twitch, the both of them straining to keep a straight face. Because on the face, none of that was a lie. Clint had been undercover as her sexy assistant (she had very much appreciated the amateur porn he had created with some nameless other person), and had actually tried to seduce her. It had ended with her being jammed with a needle full of some mystery drug, and with the palladium poisoning at bay, she did feel better.

“What you dumbasses do on your own time is fine but now is not the time for this conversation. Hawkeye, why didn't you see Ms. Stark to the meeting.”

He stood up straight. “I was having the crap beat out of me, sir.” He saluted, and then relaxed, “It’s a little difficult to focus on timing when you have such a great distraction.”

Toni smirked at the irritated or embarrassed looks on all of the Avengers faces. Messing with everyone was always so much fun. “So Director tight-ass, what's your real reason for invading. I’ve found an Olympic gymnast who’s teaching me how to get my feet behind my head, and I’m so close to being able to do it.” She hid her smile behind her coffee cup.

Toni could see the twitch in Fury's face, it had been a while since she had seen that twitch. She had almost missed it.

After a few more barbs back and forth Toni produced the prototype comm unit and threw it at Fury. “Think your trained monkeys can figure out the design off of that or do I need to send over blueprints?”

Fury made his swift exit, coat waving out behind him. With the show over she knew it was time to make an exit. “Great. Sparkles, Charlotte, Wilbur, I’ve got an Olympic gymnast waiting, and god knows I don’t want to do that.” 

She walked out of the room, knowing that the heels made her leaving something to watch. As soon as she was in the elevator she had Jarvis contact Happy to meet her in her private garage and made an appointment at the spa. The heels were off by the time she arrived to get into the car. 

When she had first thought about allowing the Avengers to live with her, Toni was conflicted. On the one hand, she knew they could never learn her secret identity. It wouldn’t be safe for her to have that many more people learn about the arc reactor. And frankly she didn’t need that for her image. And yet, she knew it would be important for them to have a home base. A place they could return to to avoid unwanted press or unwanted pressures. The solution seemed obvious at the time; she just had to alienate each and every one of them. If they didn’t like her, but did like Iron Man, no one would consider that they were one and the same.

The only problem was she hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

In the beginning it almost hurt at how easy it was to convince everyone she was horrible. Without the years of practice disappointing people, she wouldn’t have been able to convince herself that it hadn’t hurt.

But there was one person that Toni didn’t try to pretend it didn’t hurt to alienate. It struck her to her heart, that tight stinging sensation, because she hadn’t tried to alienate him. The rest of the team, sure, but the brain behind gamma radiation research? In Bruce Banner she had hoped to have another mind to work with, someone who could finally understand what she was talking about, and in helping bring things to life help quiet her mind.

That’s what had happened during the invasion. While the shit hit the fan, Toni had worked side by side with him, hypothesizing and creating ways to track the Tesseract. One of them would suggest something and the other would build off the concept. It had challenged her mind in ways that she hadn’t experienced since she was young and bothering her father. It was invigorating.

Once the invasion was truly over, all the overtures that she made as Toni Stark seemed to have disappeared. Iron Man, Bruce Banner had no problem with, but apparently Toni Stark was making Banner uncomfortable. Looking back on the couple of times they had worked together afterwards, she could kind of understand it. 

She had a way of approaching things, a way of fucking with authority that just came naturally to her. Actually, it came from a father who hadn’t wanted a daughter, much less one who partied and drank and ‘canoodled’ with boys, and a mother who didn’t want a daughter who was clearly going to follow in her father’s footsteps into the fields of engineering and alcoholism, even helping to create weapons. 

The habits she had crafted to infuriate her parents spilled into every part of her life, and unfortunately, made a certain kind of person uncomfortable. The automatic flirting and banter, her ultimate weapon, had unintentionally spilled over into her everyday interactions. While that default personality hadn’t seemed to shake Banner while under pressure, after the invasion he started to subtly flinch. And then it became less subtle. 

She would drop in on him at the lab and look over his shoulder before making a few comments as to how he could improve the formula, or if a certain chemical might work better. After a sentence or two of her thought process he would take off his glasses to rub the furrow between his eyes, the one that Toni thought looked out of place. 

Finally, “Toni,” he sighed, once again rubbing at that furrow as if that could make it disappear, “I can’t be your play toy. It’s not safe and frankly...”

She managed to keep from rearing back but couldn’t hide the flinch. “No,” she said, stopping his sentence, “I get it.” There was a sharp stinging sensation buried right in the middle of the chest, almost like when the damaged nerves around her arc reactor were partially repairing themselves. A sting that left her almost breathless.

If he had been looking in her direction, there was no way he could have missed that flinch. Watching the way her shoulders drooped may have helped him figure out that she wasn’t trying to aggravate him, that their interactions were her poor attempts at making a friend. Unfortunately for Toni, the universe wasn’t that kind.

It was the first time that she had pursued a friendship since college. There had been so many failed attempts to get to know people before she realized they only liked her for her name, her money or her fame. Never just her. She couldn’t help berating herself for not learning from the so many failed attempts, “I know. I’ll leave you your space.” 

At least with Bruce, she didn’t want him to feel guilty. She ended up feeling guilty anyway when Clint spent the whole night with her while she puked her guts out after drinking in a way that she hadn’t since before Afghanistan or that one time when she was dying. Still, she had JARVIS make sure he had everything needed for experiments and found out a couple months later that, while Banner couldn’t handle her presence, he was one of the few that actually enjoyed talking to JARVIS. 

It was a bittersweet victory.

  
  


The first month after the Chitauri invasion had been quiet. New York was recovering in the way it always recovered. People came out of the woodwork and volunteered their time, skills, and whatever materials were at hand. The city started to rebuild and life returned to normal, or the new normal. And everyone had hoped that’s the way things would continue. Unfortunately, something about the invasion woke up all the crazies. 

Toni mused that there seemed to be some sort of schedule, the irony that the supervillains and mad scientists could follow some kind of schedule but couldn’t come up with a coherent plot or even a fully realized weapon was not lost on her. The pattern wasn’t set in stone, but certain groups seemed to enjoy certain cycles. The Sinister Six managed to pull together an attack almost monthly. Doctor Doom would get riled up about something fairly regularly, but it seemed the Fantastic Four would call in the big guns about every four months or so. And so many others that Toni started having Jarvis just keep track of them. It was a game between them, of figuring out who would attack next. Morbid, yes. A hell of a lot of fun, also yes. 

But the best kind of catastrophe was the “monster of the week”, an attack that popped up randomly because all it takes is a few people who aren’t as smart as they think they are to fuck everything up. These incidents leaned more towards enlarged versions of harmless animals more than crazy psychos giving themselves powers. And the best part is that Cap didn’t feel the need to break out the moralizing, of ‘can they be rehabilitated,’ where the monsters were concerned. Toni was free to use whatever level of force she felt necessary. 

The current monster of the week, heavy emphasis on monster, were very large, acid spitting bees. Not good for morale.

As with most of the other attacks, the Avengers would head off and Toni would quickly follow, having been kept up to date by legally and illegally tapping SHIELD transmissions. Iron Man would swoop in out of nowhere within 15 minutes and fight with all the Avengers like ‘he’ had during the attempted invasion.

She was starting to think it was a good thing everyone hated her. If only so she had more time in the lab, the suit required constant upgrades to deal with the never-ending attacks. And there was something about the incidences involving crazy animals that seemed to be the worst on her poor suits. There was the time that fucked up teen (and it would have to be a teen, who else would have thought about using a growth ray on an octopus and then giving them the ability to fly) where the ink got into every nook and cranny, she had to scrap the entire suit. 

Though, while the animal attacks were generally better than the normal supervillains, the key were in that sentence was ‘generally.’ There was something about the bees (probably the acid) that made them a particularly irritating enemy for Iron Man. She had had some of the acid spit on her early in the fight and at first there hadn’t been any immediate side effects. The problem was that as the fight went on she could still hear sizzling. When she looked down she was that the paint was being eaten away by the acid, and was actually starting to corrode the metal underneath. Welp, there was another suit down the drain.

Toni called out a warning to everyone else. Thor and the Hulk were pretty well protected, Thor just didn’t want to lose all his clothes (which Toni thought was a little bit rich considering his first couple of weeks in the Tower involved a lot of nudity, which Captain tightass shut down, to Toni’s never-ending disappointment). The warning was more for the more... delicate members of the group. It worked fairly well, everyone just did their best to attack from a distance. 

The battle continued and a number of the insects had been taken down. Toni shot down yet another with her repulsors and laughed to herself. The damage to the suit seemed fairly minor and it was fun to attack one of her childhood fears. Her laugh ended abruptly as she felt the reactor power down, just for a second. Looking down, she realized that the damage to the suit wasn’t as bad as she had thought. It was worse, the damage was to the arc reactor. She cursed softly to herself and then went to focus back on the battle. The reactor could hold for long enough to clear out the rest of the bees. Not much later she felt it flick in and out again and in the moments’ hesitation heard Hawkeye yell. Within seconds she heard, rather than felt, her arm crunch as a bee rammed into her and sent her flying into a building. 

Breathing heavily, trying not to curse from the pain, Toni aimed the right hand repulsor at the bee, shooting it out of the air. “Watch out below!” She called.

She watched with a small amount of vengeful glee as the bee dropped and splattered against the ground. Looking at her left arm, she couldn’t help but to thank past her for adding stabilizers to the back of the suit. The break to her arm could have been much worse. As it was she could see where the armor had cracked, never a good sign. She looked back at the fight below and thought about trying to join back in. Every movement of her arm sent a jarring pain up to her should then and while she could still maneuver, she wasn’t sure if she could actually aim at anything. Besides, it was easy enough to get distracted watching Thor take down a Bee with lighting, or Clint take out a swarm with a single explosion. 

She shook back to herself when she heard “Iron Man, are you okay?” 

She opened up the comm again, “Just fine captain, my power source is damaged, took some acid. Not sure if I can be much help until this is fixed.”

“We have this under control, you can leave.” 

She closed the comm and grunted in pain while preparing herself to fly off. She could see Clint staring at her from a distance. It was obvious he was worried, and for once she wouldn’t mind it. That arm wasn’t going to set itself. 

Collapsing back in her lab she called up JARVIS. “Hey buddy? I need this taken off fast.” She had already used one of the manual overrides for her gloves and was working to carefully take off the damaged armor around her broken arm. Hissing, she let it drop and turned to smile and Dumm-E and Butterfingers. She moved her arms out of the way and let them unhook the chestpiece, which had a number of holes still sizzling slightly. She closed her eyes, breathing heavily at the jolts of pain coming from around the arc reactor. It wasn’t just not putting out energy, it was shocking her already delicate system. 

“JARVIS, please tell me I remembered to have a spare reactor....”

At that moment the elevator opened. “I mean, really Toni, giant bees. What are they teaching at super villain academy...” He stopped cold when he saw her struggling. “Shit.” He immediately ran to the workbench she was leaning against and moved around the under armor she wore under the armor.

She choked out a laugh, trying to hide her worry about the blue flickering dangerously from her chest. “Damn Barton, I knew you wanted to see my tits, but....”

“Well they are pretty spectacular.” He said, following JARVIS's directions to finding the spare. He vaulted over the desk and handed it to her.

Toni popped out the old one, which had started flickering more rapidly as she laid there. She popped in the new one, and the pressure on her chest started to decrease. However the pain in her arm started to grow. “Fuckin-A” she growled. “Can you help me with this? It's gonna suck to try and have to cover up for the next week.”

She couldn’t bring herself to care that her entire chest was bare. It wasn’t the first time he had seen it. He had seen her chest with palladium poisoning, while sparring, and on a couple of the rare nights she allowed herself to drink herself silly. The reactor was her greatest weakness, but Clint was one of the best people she knew. 

“At least you’ll have wonderful tits to make up for it.” He pulled gently at her arm. “Toni this looks like it’s gonna need a brace at least.”

While the skin hadn’t broken, Clint still cleaned her bicep with antiseptic. ‘Just to be careful,’ he had half sung out of tune. While he constructed a brace he told her that it was a clean break to the humerus, because of course it was. Nothing about the situation was funny, yet fate would try to throw that in her face. He was just setting the bone and putting the brace on when he brokered the conversation about necessary backups.

“What if this happens in the field?”

“I'll be able to take care of it Barton.”

He stopped moving and looked her in the eye. “Toni, I generally don't press things. You need to tell me about what to do in case of emergency in the field and we should at least tell the others that Iron man has a ‘condition’.”

“Point one,” she said, “saying he has a ‘condition’ makes it sound like Iron Man is pregnant.” He didn’t smile at the joke, and she could tell he meant serious business. Most of his serious queries were still presented within jokes or sarcasm. The total drop of his snark and humor loaned his words importance. “Fine, I'll add a section to a new quiver that can hold a spare arc reactor.”

He nodded. “I'm pretty sure you can figure out how to work the catch on the...” she gestured to the reactor,” just twist. Unless you're too distracted by my beautiful body in which case...” She trailed off, smiling slightly through the pain at Barton's snort. “Natasha can do it. Plus, you have to tell them about Iron Man’s pregnancy.”

Toni still didn’t know quite how to act around Thor. For all that he claimed he had changed, he seemed to accidentally belittle Toni. The problem clearly wasn’t how he treated women. He would boast for hours about the Lady Warrior Sif and all the adventures they shared. Natasha had clearly earned his respect as he had started to tell epics about her to whatever news media wasn’t too afraid of him to approach. Even when the women weren’t warriors he seemed to treasure them. Toni had never seen anyone as gentle with a woman as Thor was with his girlfriend and her assistant. Thor even treated Pepper well, bowing to her when she entered a room. Yet, when it came to Toni, he never seemed to believe that she was capable of doing anything, much less creating such ‘wonderful inventions.’

While Thor came from a world where “science and magic were one and the same,” he was still weirdly impressed or unimpressed by science. The Tesseract and the rainbow bridge were no big deal, however using something other than animals for general transportation seemed to weird Thor out. When he had first settled into the tower Toni had tried to make the transition easy for him. Watching Thor immediately use a toaster or work the television while still not believing that JARVIS wasn’t just a man hiding around the corner amused Toni. She wouldn’t point out to him how things functioned exactly, but she would have JARVIS try to help out. 

It wasn’t until she tossed a StarkTablet at him that he immediately discarded as useless and outdated that she let herself alienate him. Seeing him fiddling around with it a few days later once he realized that the beat up computer that Jane had left with him didn’t work as well as the new technology didn’t change her resolve, after all, his dismissal made it easier for her to be spiteful.

So many people had underestimated her, and almost everyone who had was either eating their words or dead. The worst part of his condescension was how it made her want to impress him. The years of her father ignoring her inventions, the board questioning her ability to make weapons that would explode or Obie, when he tried to convince her not to shut down the weapons manufacturing sector of Stark industries had clearly left their mark.

Eventually she would try to rile him up; pointing out when he didn’t understand the technology or the customs, eating all his poptarts and making sure his personal gym never had the right kind of equipment. The more he dismissed her the harsher she would become.

She began to invent things that she knew would impress him, only to pass them off to Fury secretly, telling him to give Iron Man the credit. 

She almost looked forward to the day when the news that she was Iron Man came out, if only to see his surprised look that she could be a fierce warrior and create such wonderful experiments. 

The list of people that Toni thought of as trustworthy was longer than it had ever been, even if most of those people would only consider talking to her if she was in the suit. The list of people that Toni truly counted as friends would be considered depressingly short by anyone who wasn’t Toni. For the longest time that list had just been Rhodey, Pepper and Obie. Recently though, Obie had been erased from the list with vigor and eventually Clint took the valued third spot. 

She had learned the hard way that an orphaned heiress couldn’t trust any unknown elements. Toni had learned how to be distrustful, if hadn’t come naturally to her the way so many things had. There had been a number of people who had tried to get closer to her just for the benefit of being friends with Toni Stark. Suzy in third grade had only gone to her birthday party for the magnificent gift bags that the original Jarvis had put together. Brett, her first boyfriend, the one that had pissed off her father so much, had only hung out with her for the unlimited booze and promise of sex. There were the numerous gold diggers in high school and college. People who had only talked to her for a chance to get an internship, or in the hope that she would toss money to any yes-man or –woman who popped up.

Toni learned to close herself off over time. 

Rhodey had been an anomaly. At first, his had been a grudging friendship, he had some strange urge to protect this girl that would mouth off to people twice her strength and laugh while she was having the shit beat out of her. Toni warily offered him friendship and he warily took it. He was one of the last people that Toni pursued in order to be friends. She was lucky that she had been drunk enough when she met him that she hadn’t been thinking about the “effort to make a friend vs the likelihood of them screwing her over ratio.” It was a ratio that normally served her well, especially in hindsight. But she had never regretted anything having to do with Rhodey. He had saved her life in college, and had indirectly saved her life more times than she could count (and that’s a pretty high number because, genius) since then.

Pepper though... Pepper had never wanted to be friends with Toni and Toni had never wanted Pepper to be her friend. When her fourth assistant in as many months had taken off Toni had almost given up. It was Rhodey who brought to his attention the girl in accounting who had caught an error in Toni’s own data. He was sitting in her office looking at some of the paperwork in his role as ‘military liaison to Stark Industries’ (and really fulfilling the ‘I’m bored and I’m allowed to do this now’ protocols) when he notice a few numbers circled in red pen. He had laughed before waving it in Toni’s face, proof that she could be wrong. His suggestion made some sense, that pulling someone from inside the firm might be better than someone who didn’t have an idea what working for Toni was actually like. 

Rhodey brought Pepper into the office where Pepper glared at Toni’s oil-stained Armani pants-suit. “Number 1,” Pepper started, her eyes flashing dangerously when Toni went to open her mouth, “I am going to set your schedule and you are damn well going to follow it. I don't care if this is your company, I was happy in accounting and frankly I see this job as a demotion with a pay raise. Number 2: I have hours set up. I work from 8 in the morning until 6 at night, unless there is an event in the evening I am required to attend. Overtime will be limited. I am allowed to take off one day a week, and I get to choose the day. And Number 3: You will from this day forward never abuse Armani so cruelly.” 

The early years of their partnership were full of snarking back and forth, Toni fighting against the organization that Pepper enforced. Toni didn’t like having to actually go to the meetings with the board, never saw the benefit and ended up going only to keep Pepper off her back. Pepper still had to see Toni ruin perfectly good clothing and shoes, thinking at least six times a day about quitting to go back to her old job. 

The grudging respect for each other fell into comfortable habit after three years, and as Pepper’s job description expanded. She started to rarely take the days off, partly due to being too busy to spend a day at the spa or the beach, and partly b/c she started to enjoy working with the powerful and slightly crazy (sorry, she’s wealthy, the term is ‘eccentric’) woman. 

The relationship had been solid for years, with “girl days” where they would sit around and drink 40 year old scotch while exploding things (safely exploded things; Pepper required goggles and a blast shield) in Toni’s lab. Toni practically required Pepper to go shopping with her, and Pepper had stopped finding shopping with Toni to be a chore within a few months. 

But the moment that truly cemented Pepper’s spot on Toni’s short friend list (spot number 2 if anyone asked – she moved up one whole space. No one would ever replace Rhodey as number 1) was the day that, after being missing for more than a month, Toni had made the announcement that Stark Industries weapons manufacturing was going to shut down. The board had bitched and moaned and Obie had accosted her in the hallway, trying to convince her to change her mind. When Pepper had walked over, Toni had expected yet another attempt to persuade her and was instead met with an “I’m sorry Obadiah, Ms. Stark has a very important appointment that we need to be leaving for.” Before happily dragging Toni to the car. Once they were out of Obie’s ear shot Pepper whispered, “The appointment is at a salon, it’s about your hair, it is really becoming a problem.” 

Toni huffed out a pained laugh and looked up at Pepper in awe. Pepper who could read a situation and know exactly the right thing to say. Pepper merely smiled at the weak laugh and finished escorting Toni to the car. 

In the car, away from prying eyes, Pepper had sat there, brushing her hand through Toni’s still matted hair as Toni broke down. When the car had stopped at the salon, Pepper looked deep into Toni’s eyes, wiped away some smudged mascara and nodded, exiting. Toni’s chest expanded at the implicit knowledge that Pepper would never mention that to another person.

Since then Pepper had basically moved in, at least more so than she used to, helping Toni prepare for the day. Toni would stand in the mirror and tousle her hair, loudly debating with Pepper about different levels of makeup while Pepper would dip into Toni’s closet to choose which extravagant shoes would go best with which extravagant suit. 

On this particular morning, shortly after the bee attack, when Pepper dropped in Toni was already wearing a relatively toned down dress (for her. It still stopped right under her butt, but it was black so...) and finishing the necessary prep work to look presentable to the board. Pepper came up behind her and said, “Don’t bother, we’re skipping today.” 

Toni raised her eyebrows, “What a rebel. And what are we doing to avoid the coach today, sitting under the bleachers by the field talking about boys?”

“The board has been uncompromising recently, they haven’t earned your presence. We’re going to a nail salon.” Toni looked at her nails, kept filed to make working with delicate parts easier and Pepper sighed, “I know it’s not something you normally do, but it’ll be relaxing. Trust me.” 

Toni, never one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, shrugged, ditched the nice jacket to go over the dress and chose the most ratty leather jacket that she had acquired (i.e. stolen) from an old boyfriend in college.

Half an hour later and the two women were sitting next to each other having their nails done. Pepper was going for a lovely purple that would match... something. Toni couldn’t even remember what was in her own wardrobe, she certainly didn’t remember Pepper’s, though she could guess that it was probably something that Toni had paid for as a birthday present. Toni had found the brightest red possible and was having a gold accent put on. Pepper had put her hand on Toni’s bicep as she moved over to get a pedicure, just as a note that she was moving stations.

Toni, not expecting the contact to her injured arm couldn’t help but to hiss a little bit as the heavy material spread the pressure along the entirety of her arm. Pepper was immediately concerned, glancing from the point of contact to Toni’s face, which couldn’t immediately hide her discomfort. Toni Stark might have become an impressive actress to the public but she wasn’t particularly good at hiding anything from her friends. Toni stayed tense until Pepper looked away, Toni couldn’t help but to feel relieved. To her, it seemed like Pepper might have started putting the clues together. In the past week or so Toni would notice Pepper pausing when Toni flinched when someone pressed up against her back. The day that Toni tried to cover up some unfortunate bruises with makeup made Pepper come over the peer over her entire face. And Pepper had been trying to get Toni away from her labs and out of the tower more than usual, just like this little trip to the salon.

Toni knew that she should have known better when, back in the car, before Toni could start a conversation Pepper gently grabbed the jacket and pulled. In order to keep from injuring herself further, Toni pulled her arm out of the warm leather sleeve which allowed Pepper to capture her arm and pull up the sleeve of her dress. “Toni, what is this?” She said, gesturing to the well wrapped bandage (thank you Clint for at least being thorough).

“It’s nothing Pepp.”

“Did you burn yourself in the lab again?”

Toni rolled her eyes, “Yeah mom, it was just a minor lab accident.”

Pepper had pulled her sleeve all the way up to her shoulder, which was cutting off a little bit of Toni’s circulation though she wasn’t going to say anything when Pepper’s face had clouded over when she looked at the wrapping. “Does this have anything to do with all the people you're letting stay with you?”

Toni sighed. “Pepp... no, the Avengers stay out of my way and I stay out of theirs. I'm fine. Calm down.”

“Well, they don't seem very grateful to the person who's providing housing for free.”

“Pepp. I'm an asshole. You should know that better than anyone, except for maybe Rhodey. It's not surprising that I've rubbed them the wrong way. Frankly, I don't really care. They don't take up that much space and they're relatively quiet. Plus, it means I live in the safest place in New York City.” Pepper rolled her eyes at this.

“You’re not an asshole.” At Toni’s look Pepper sighed, “fine, but you’re only an asshole on purpose… Just let that Nick Fury know that if they do anything, he'll have me to talk to.”

Toni smiled at the mental image of Pepper dressing down Nick Fury. “Will do Pepp. That's actually a fight I'd like to see.”

Toni was in her lab, her real lab, trying to make a quiver for Clint that had a compartment in the bottom that could house the arc reactor. In itself the design wasn't difficult. There were already mechanics in the quiver, but she had to find a way to make the compartment look inconspicuous, and, she figured, she might as well upgrade it while she had it, which is why the project was taking any time at all.

The music she had pumping through both labs suddenly stopped. “Miss.” JARVIS announced. “Colonel Rhodes is here.”

“Rhodey's here?” Toni dropped the hologram she had been fiddling with and shoved her welding glasses off their perch on her head and raced for the elevators. As she ran through the tower she grabbed a sweater and quickly pulled it on over the tank top she favored welding in.

Finally at the entrance to the living quarters she saw Rhodey. “Huggle-Bug,” she yelled, leaping towards him, knowing he would catch her. He stumbled back a foot, but was clearly prepared as he didn't fall over like he had the first two times Toni had taken a blind leap.

“Toni,” he said fondly.

“I didn't know you were coming,” she leered at him.

“Well, I hadn't come to visit for a while and...”

Toni could see that he was deflecting, “Pepper sent you.” It wasn’t even a question.

Rhodey gave up trying to hide it and set her back on the ground, “Yeah, she just said she was a little worried...”

“And I told her it was nothing. So calm your tits.” She heard someone huff and her shoulders immediately rose, “Ah, I see you had your chance to talk to Captain stick-up-his-ass. Don't worry Rhodey, my first and only love. You'll always be number one in my book.”

“Hey,” Clint called out from the doorway where he was walking with Natasha. “Isn't that what you said to me last week?”

He and Rhodey greeted each other with a firm pat to the back. “Good to see you man. You've been taking care of Toni?”

“As much as she'll let me 'huggle-bug.'”

“That's Col. Huggle-Bug to you Barton!”

Clint just smiled, clapped him on the shoulder and went into the kitchen.

“You know Clint?” Cap asked Rhodes.

“I vetted him when it was decided that Toni needed a babysitter. I wasn't too sure about him, but he managed to get her out of a few tight spots, though not as quickly as he could have.” His voice raised at the very end so that Clint could hear him.

“You try to help her when she doesn't want it.” Sailed out from the kitchen.

“You forget I went to college with her.” Rhodey yelled back, “When she was 15 and too smart for her own good. I had to break up a fight she started with a frat. And not just one guy... the whole fraternity.”

Toni chuckled as she pushed herself under Rhodey's arm, “Good times.”

Rhodey gave her the evil eye and turned back to the good captain leaving his arm draped around her shoulder. “After that, I figured he was probably trustworthy, and what with everything....” Toni stomped on his foot, still trying to bask in the warmth of his presence.

“Don't be giving away trade secrets.” She said lightly, though she knew Rhodey could feel the undercurrent of anger. Rhodey grabbed for her arm, pulling up the shrug just enough to see the bandage.

That was it. Toni whirled around. “Why has everyone I trust suddenly decided that I’m not allowed to make my own decisions? Find me when you decide I’m an adult” She stomped out of the room fuming. She was tired of Clint pressing the issue and now Pepper and Rhodey were ganging up on her too. She desperately wanted to spend time with Rhodey, there was never enough time before he was called out, and she was called out. But she couldn’t stand for more of the unnecessary worry.

Even as she stormed out she could hear Cap asking “Is she always this volatile?”

She made a mental note to herself to have JARVIS make the Captain’s life a little more difficult. Back in the lab she was happy to grab the welding goggles and torch. Nothing was quite as good a stress reliever as welding.

She started to irritate the good Captain the minute he first met her. Fury had asked her to the Helicarrier, knowing she was one of the only people who could help. Plus, with Clint being compromised, the whole experience had all become personal. 

She was irritated and pacing around, just waiting until someone would actually let her help when in walked in Mr. Perfect. He looked at her, and within seconds she could feel the disappointment. Fury had clearly mentioned that Howard Stark had a daughter, and she wasn’t what he expected. 

She didn’t know what he had expected in the first place, but the short, messy haired woman wearing a ratty old t-shirt and yoga pants was clearly not it. He had watched as Natasha had challenged her worth and she almost slipped then, saying a billionaire, superstar, philanthropist... (Iron Man; she screamed in her head). 

A good deal of anger still left over from the argument, Toni noticed the good captain shaking his head, “Are you disappointed that I’m not some dainty damsel?”

“You seem to just want to spit on your fathers’ memory with every opportunity.”

She smiled beatifically, “If he didn’t want that, then he should have spent some time with his family rather than just looking for you.” She gave him her very best ‘fuck you politely’ smile and used the opportunity to stomp out of the room (pretty impressive given she was barefoot. It was easier to pilot the Iron Man suit in either no shoes or the thin soled shoes she had designed for exactly that reason. Unluckily, she had run out of her lab quickly enough that her normal shoes weren’t easily available. Still, she regretted the barefoot stomping once she was out of the room and realized that the floors were freaking freezing) to go get into the Iron Man suit, the suit where she would be taken seriously.

Even after that first encounter with the Captain she tried to calm herself. After all her really had just woken up from a 70 year long nap. That grace period ended fairly quickly though. Toni was smart, she knew her history, and the news hadn't changed as much in 70 years as he would have liked them to believe. Even back in the day journalists would take the opportunity to make headlines. Which is why he should have known better than to spout his mouth off after one of the world-saving missions. 

He claimed he was accosted, that words were taken out of context, but that was only when Fury had confronted him. They had been doing clean up when a journalist walked up to him. Apparently he didn't say he was a journalist and Steve wanted everybody to believe that he was so innocent that he would have no problem talking to any random stranger off of the street, (and knowing him, Toni could almost believe it). When the journalist asked the Captain about where he was staying he took the opportunity to wax poetic about his teammates, how they all meshed, family dinners that had been instituted once a week, movie nights. He mentioned each team member, talking about their positives attributes and generally being a "stand-up guy" at least until the journalist asked about Iron Man. The captain said that he really respected the man inside the suit and wished he was friendlier. That alone wasn't a problem, part of Toni was gratified that her childhood hero wanted to know more about her. The problem was that the journalist asked about their "beloved host." And the good Captain wasn't smart enough to either sense the trap, or let it go. Instead of making up some bullshit like every other team member, he started talking about Ms. Starks' inability to keep a normal schedule, the amount of mess she made, the general rudeness, and ended by stating that she was a disappointing modern day figure. 

Don't get her wrong, Toni’s willing to give a lot of people a chance. Generally the people she offered chances to disappointed her, and this was no exception. She didn't particularly enjoy making all of her teammates hate her (most of the time, although if pressed she would admit some of the more petty grievances were hysterical), it was only out of necessity. However in that moment, complaining to the media... Toni hated her childhood hero.

The worst part is that she didn't find out about it until days later when the Broadcast finally aired Titled "Captain America has beef with America's "sweetheart"” with a picture that someone had taken of Toni back in the days when she still drank outside of her home when someone had gotten a picture of her leaving a limo clearly wasted and without proper underwear. On its own, Toni could handle the pictures. But when accompanied by such criticism from someone who had never actively tried to get to know her, and Toni’s walls went up even higher. 

He had even tried to apologize, for that at least. While everything Steve Rogers did was 110% genuine it didn’t change the fact that his apology was more about the fact that it made the news rather than that he said it. Halfway through his speech she just turned around and left. There would be no point in listening to it. Even when he called to her from down the hall she just turned and smiled saying, “you only said what was true, right? Now I’m sorry, but my erratic schedule says I need to be getting drunk and exposing myself in public.”

After that, it was too easy to mess with his head. He was from a more conservative era so dropping hints about the wild parties and promiscuity as well as her apparent disregard for her father's’ memory or even human beings in general and the good Captain seemed pretty happy with his assessment. She noticed his love for art, so while Iron Man might leave Steve with a notebook, Toni would show up in a newspaper ‘hammered’ at a gallery opening. All part of the plan. 

Two hours after greeting Rhodey she heard JARVIS tell her “Col. Rhodes is at the door Miss.”

She sighed and unlocked the door. No matter how angry she was at him, he would be gone in such a short time. His job required that he be mobile and Toni wasn’t willing to let her anger ruin an opportunity to see him. He walked in and sat on the stool next to hers. She mostly ignored him, leaving her goggles on and working on the tiny mechanical project.

“What's that?” Rhodey asked once she had set down her tools.

“Protection. For when I can't have the full suit.”

Rhodey nodded. “Can I see your arm?”

Toni obediently held out her arm, where Rhodey unwrapped the bandages and whistled at the damage. Toni considered herself lucky. It had been a while since the fight, now instead of the angry marks that had crawled up the vast majority of her upper arm and shoulder she was just left with a mess of bruises. From her relatively little medical information (Okay so she had taken one pre-med course and fucked the TA – she still knew more about medicine than half the class) the break had mostly healed.

“It's not as bad as it looks.” Rhodey looked at her disapprovingly. “Oh come on, it's not like this is anything new. Besides we know that all you wanted to do was get me to stop working and relax a bit, so... Movie Night? Did you know that Clint has never seen Miss Congeniality?”

“And isn't that a travesty.” Rhodey said drily, still smiling when Toni dragged him to the movie room, yelling, “MOVIE NIGHT. TWINKLE-TOES GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE IT'S TIME FOR MISS CONGENIALITY.”

It ended up only being four of them, Toni’s presence being enough to scare off the good Captain, Thor and Bruce. Toni sprawled over Rhodey with her feet just tapping Clint's legs and Natasha, who was on the other side of Clint, wrapped up in a blanket.

It was a good night. Occasionally Toni would nudge Clint with her foot and open her mouth, and without looking he would toss popcorn in. It was a feat that Rhodey was used to, but Natasha stared at them the first couple of times it happened before ignoring them both.

Throughout the movie Clint and Toni traded lazy barbs and snippy comments about what was happening on screen. When the SING scene came up Clint mentioned that Toni's form was better making Rhodey chuckle and Natasha look confused while Toni preened.

At the end of the movie Toni yawned, said night to the two super assassins and dragged Rhodey off with her to her room.

They settled into her bed, Toni, wearing normal pajamas, and Rhodey wearing sweats that she had had JARVIS steal from Captain America. His were just so much better than the sweats they sold to women. Rhodey let her curl up into him. Their relationship hadn't always been completely platonic. When she had turned 18 and was a legitimate hell raiser, as opposed to the show she put on now, she and Rhodey had been inseparable. It didn’t take long before they decided that anything more than friends wasn’t in the plans and instead turned into being bros and best friends. He was the once who helped her realize there ways to keep people around without paying them or sleeping with them. There were only so many people that Toni felt comfortable curling up with, showing the fact that she wasn't as strong as she wanted to be, and Rhodey was one of the few. When he held tightly on to her that night, instead of making a joke, Toni just snuggled deeper into the embrace, enjoying the strings-free warmth of another person. 

The morning after watching movies, before Rhodey had to leave, Toni took over the kitchen. She made a stack of blueberry pancakes, and had banana nut chocolate chip muffins coming out of the oven when the Cap walked in. His first question was, “Are those my pants.”

Without turning Toni said, “Would you rather see him wearing some of mine?” There was no answer.

Everyone else wandered in, attracted by the smell of food, but once they noticed it was Toni cooking the only one to brave it was Rhodey. Toni found this insulting. She sat down at the table and grabbed a muffin of her own and filling her plate with two of the pancakes, soon to be smothered in butter. “It's not gonna kill you.”

“We just... ah, well, we didn't know that you could cook.” Banner said, smelling the muffins.

“Well, contrary to popular belief, I did have a mother who wasn't fond of my chosen interests and tried to make me into the perfect little housewife. Most of it didn't stick, but hey 'baking is science for hungry people.'”

Conversation started to flow once they all saw Toni grab some food. Breakfast was a success, then again Toni had low standards when it came to eating. As long as there were more calories than could be found in water, and it wasn't alcoholic Toni considered breakfast a success.

She kicked lightly as Rhodey's legs under the table and quietly asked, “So… can you tell me where you're off to?”

He smiled sadly, “Sorry Toni, not this time. Though I'll try to stop in sometime soon. You're a lot closer to DC now than you were.”

“Just remember, you're my spy on the inside of the government. I want to know what of their shit is outdated so that I can protect the country all by my lonesome, if need be.” She saw Thor pause his inhalation of food, to laugh. “You have a problem with that Lightning-bug?”

He just smiled at her. “All your people are tiny, but you Toni Stark are tiny even in comparison. How would you expect to battle great villains?”

Her eyes shut down, losing any of the warmth they held while talking to Rhodey, “I think your brother proved that size didn’t matter, I mean for a frost GIANT he was pretty runty...”

Rhodey looked between Toni and her teammate, probably notice the static jumping around Thor, before he stood up, “Toni, I think it's time for me to go.” Toni glared at Thor but her posture relaxed.

“I'll walk you out.” Her eyes didn’t leave Thor until she was out of the kitchen.

Rhodey slung his bag over his shoulder. “Take care of yourself Toni.” she opened her mouth to argue and he cut her off, “I know that you believe you're taking care of yourself, but Toni, I'm not just talking physically. You're going to have to tell them eventually, and it's better if they don't hate you when that happens.”

Toni was looking at her feet. She knew that it was going to happen, probably sooner rather than later, but she was comfortable hiding. She grabbed onto him and hugged him tightly. He returned the hug just as hard and kissed her forehead. “Just keep holding on. And if anything happens call me or Pepp, okay?”

She nodded, “Safe trip snuggle-butt.”

For the time after Rhodey’s visit, Toni kept Pepper at a distance. She understood that Pepper meant well, but if felt like a betrayal, calling in the big guns. But Toni was a social creature and after a few days of silence – chatting with JARVIS wasn’t quite the same - Toni finally gave in and called Pepper. Her version of an apology for being a bitch consisted of telling Pepper to ‘take the day off’ which was code for I want an excuse to do some of the things I get judged for and I want you to keep me company. Pepper sighed but acquiesced, with Toni’s behavior improving after the Avengers moved in, taking a day off was a real possibility instead of the pipe dream it had been. 

After a long lunch at an overpriced restaurant Toni whisked the two of them to go shopping. They sat on the couches drinking champagne as Toni thought out loud. “For the D'arbanville ball, I'm thinking lots of long sleeves. And it's getting cold again, Oh, and something sinful for a jacket... Something lined with fur?” She raised an eyebrow at Pepper over her champagne glass.

Pepper watched as the woman who owned the store brought over a collection of dresses, predominantly in gold and red, colors that Toni had become famous for wearing over the last couple years, all part of her 'epic-crush' on Iron Man. Pepper asked the woman “a little more color please. Maybe a few in green or blue?” Before turning back to Toni. “Not real fur. We don't need the negative image you would get from PETA. However we could find something lined in synthetic fur, are you going to continue with your normal red and gold?”

Toni raised a hand to her chest. “You wound me, is red and gold getting too predictable?”

“Of course not Miss Stark. You've only worn red and gold for the last four years. I'm sure everyone will be surprised when you reveal, gasp, a gold and red dress.”

Toni giggled. “Fine, I'll look into another color, just for you though.”

“Well aren't I special.” Pepper said, “The great Toni Stark is adjusting her sense of style just for me.”

“Pep, you've always been special. The good kind.” Toni set her glass down and flipped through the hangers that had been brought out. She pulled something in a dark green. “You should try this on.” Toni grabbed something random for herself and pulled the curtain around the sizable changing area. She put on the pink dress and immediately knew it was a bad decision, starting with the fact that it was pink. She opened the curtain to see Pepper looking stunning.

“Happy birthday Pepper.” Toni said, watching as Pepper slid her hands over the delicate fabric, clearly delighting in the dress.

“Oh Toni, it's so nice when you actually remember.” Pepper turned and saw Toni in the pink dress, expression looking pitying, “Oh Toni,” she tried to catch her laughter with a hand over her mouth. She failed, “that is really not your color.”

“Maybe I should buy it for Fury. I think he could pull it off.” 

Pepper smiled slyly, “I do think his color palette could use a little expansion and Mr. Fury’s personality does scream pastel.”

The tried on a few more outfits, especially the ridiculous ones, like the peacock dress with the feathered train that Pepper ‘talked’ Toni into trying on. Let’s be honest, Toni dug around the store’s inventory to pull out something that ridiculous purely to get a rise out of Pepper. The image of Pepper bent in half laughing so hard she started to snort will be burned in Toni’s mind forevermore.

Pepper did also talk Toni into buying a few more business outfits, considering her business jackets and skirts always seemed to get covered in oil. Pepper mentioned this with a glare, causing Toni to roll her eyes. Her clothes were never actually ruined in the lab, it was always due to an Avengers mission where the clothes would get torn in the process of suiting up. Toni would need an excuse for why the clothes were ruined, oil and grease were always happy to help out. It was no surprise she considered them close friends. 

They had decided on everything and Toni sent Pepper out to grab Happy while she paid. She handed the dress that had looked so amazing on Pepper to the woman ringing up the purchases, as well as a few more dressed and a couple of jackets just for business. Making sure that Pepper wasn’t around Toni took out a different credit card to buy the pink dress. It had looked horrendous on Toni, but she knew that Natasha would look stunning, plus there were at least places on the dress that could house a small gun or a collection of knives. Natasha might not like Toni, and the feeling might be at least partially mutual, but Iron Man was a good teammate, and Toni’s problems with the spy were completely of her own making.

The first time that Toni saw Natasha was because of Clint. She had had a meeting on the Helicarrier that she actually had to attend. Once she stormed out of Fury’s office, two parts fake irritation, one part ‘Dammit Fury,’ she went straight to the gyms, knowing that was where Clint seemed to spend a lot of his time. 

She entered the gym just in time to see Clint being pinned by a beautiful red-head. Toni couldn’t help but to start clapping. The red head’s body tensed at the sound, eyes immediately coming up to stare at the intruder. 

Toni, through years of learning not to react to other movements, didn’t flinch at the open hostility in the other woman’s eyes “Nice job Clint, though I think that might not be the most pleasant way to be tackled by a beautiful woman. I personally prefer the entire process to be sans clothes.” Clint rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up. 

“Charming Toni.”

“Don’t worry Clint,” Toni wiggled her eyebrows, “I’ll make sure to invite you too.” Clint laughed, head thrown back at even the suggestion as Natasha stalked out of the room, giving Toni a wide berth. 

Toni watched her the entire way out, enjoying the unintentional (or, knowing Natasha, completely intentional) swish of her body. Once she was out of sight she turned back to Clint, “Come on Stinky, it’s time for lunch. I have this lovely place.... They might have a dress code but it’s me, so we’re ignoring it. Just grab your ass and let’s go....” 

The first time that Natasha and Toni actually interacted was yet again on the Helicarrier, right after Clint had been taken over. 

It was proving her ‘three-friend-theory’ right. Toni was terrified about losing one of the few people that had managed to make it into her life in a more permanent way, she couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if there were more people she was worried about. Thoughts buzzing around her head, hands flailing (scientifically of course, it helped her think) she couldn’t help but to think that her mania and fear were not being well hidden. Actually, to everyone who wasn’t Rhodey, Pepper or Clint, she would seem hyperactive, a little bit insane, and worst of all, excited.

Even while knowing that her manic energy was throwing everyone off, Toni just couldn’t contain herself. Natasha wouldn’t stop glaring at her as she almost danced her way around the lab, adjusting some of the numbers that Banner had come up with, while keeping up a running commentary. The constant stream-of-consciousness thinking/talking eventually turned to “Bird-brain,” which was what finally caused Natasha to snap. 

She had clearly been trying to figure out why Toni was there in the first place and had reached her breaking point. She slammed her hands down on a table, stopping Toni’s stream of chatter, “Stop acting like you care about Clint missing when all you care about is using him.” 

Toni was shocked, but unfortunately not speechless, as her natural defense kicked in, “Is that jealousy I hear Miss Romanoff?”

Eyes flashing, Natasha spoke in a deadly soft voice. “It’s AGENT, and I know you Stark. I’ve read your files. I’ve seen you use people and discard them like a careless child with too many toys. You seem to have captivated my partner, but I am going to be the one who is there to put the pieces back together when you are finally bored. 

“What do you know about any of that?”

“I know that your business partner, and the man who acted like your father was killed in an explosion at the building housing the arc reactor and that your mourning period was almost non-existent. How do you expect people to believe you have a heart when all signs point in the opposite direction.”

Shocked into silence, Toni had to steel herself from the pain at hearing Obie used in such a deferential manner, “You know nothing about me.” With steel in her eyes she brought out her publicity smile. It was just one more person in her past who had betrayed her being used against her. Claiming that not missing Obie meant she didn’t have a heart was a laughable affair. Mourning in private was still mourning. But that performance, that smile and steel allowed Natasha to get in her final shot.

“All I see is someone empty, trying to fill their worthless life with people much better than they are.” 

And for that Toni had no response. For one, it was true. She had tried desperately to hide her emptiness, to surround herself by people who were better, that for once, she couldn’t come up with any sort of comeback. She couldn’t help the way her eyes widened in pain, and for the split second it was visible it almost seemed like Natasha catalogued it. It was a sort of luck that the conversation couldn’t continue as Fury and some ducklings entered the room.

The tense atmosphere didn’t dissipate but Natasha took a step back and Toni turned back towards Banner, already donning the carefree costume she played so well.

Her hands shook as she took off the suit. She balled her hands into fists, forcing herself to breathe in and out slowly. Letting her shoulders slump she tried not to think about Steve’s face as they broke into the building. He hadn’t looked hopeless, he hadn’t been gone for quite that long, but there was fear. 

The good Captain rarely showed fear. After waking up in a new century he had seemed to adjust well. Even in the Chitauri invasion he hadn’t freaked out. The only fear he had shown was for the people he was fighting for. Yet when he was strapped to the table, arms straining to free himself, he had looked fearful. 

While changing back into her normal clothes she talked to Jarvis. “Hey J?”

“Yes Miss?”

“I need you to check in on the Captain. You know what’s been going on, if you could just monitor him, make sure that his heart rate doesn’t spike… you know the drill.” 

“Of course, if you’re looking for Captain Rodgers’, he’s currently in the kitchen. Dr. Banner is currently attending to Captain Rodger’s bruised ribs.”

Toni hadn’t known about the ribs, “Why doesn’t he have a medic?” She started towards the stairs. 

“I believe that the Captain wanted to make it to a comfortable area as quickly as possible.”

Toni nodded to herself, “Makes sense.” She walked calmly to the kitchen, pausing to make sure she didn’t disturb Bruce as he was poking at Steve. Steve turned towards her after a moment, eyes hard. 

“Did you need something Miss Stark?”

Toni blinked, “I just wanted to make sure that you were okay…” She went to the freezer and pulled an ice pack out from behind all the things that JARVIS had thought the Avengers might need. She handed them to Bruce. “No offense Doc, but shouldn’t he see a medical doctor?”

“Miss Stark, I would prefer you don’t talk about me like I’m not in the room.” Steve’s tone was bitten off and pained. Clearly his injury was getting to him.

“Steve, calm down.” Bruce said, calming hand on his shoulder. He took the ice pack that Toni had given to him and wrapped it up before pressing it to Steve’s side. 

Toni grimly watched the way that Steve flinched from the cold before taking it from Bruce and pressing it firmly onto his skin, for a second she felt the heat of a desert starting as a burn under the skin of her neck. “Toni, I understand that you want to know what’s happening under your roof, but Steve is an adult, it was his decision to come back to the tower and with his healing rate and my medical experience, providing him with a check-up without the attention that Steve is likely to garner is beneficial both for his safety of body and mind.”

Bruce was standing directly in front of her, posture as confrontational as she had ever seen when he wasn’t the Hulk. Toni’s eyes closed, letting the heat from her mind expand through her body; thinking about the cave, thinking about Obie, she opened her eyes and nodded. “Okay. Thank you. Captain, if you need anything please let Jarvis or I know.”

She swallowed, not wanting to see the suspicion in their faces. Turning to go back she heard someone ask, “Why do you care now?”

A laugh almost escaped, “Torture is no joke, doesn’t matter whether you like me or not, just wanted to know you’re okay”

  
  


Toni woke up with her head in Pepper's lap. Movement of any sort was clearly unwelcome by the ringing in her head, her shortness of breath and the twitch she could still feel reverberate in her fingers.

“What happened?” She slurred.

“We were attacked on the way to a board meeting.” Pepper explained. “They pushed us into a van and when they went to take your bag from you, you started fighting back and they tazed you. Oh, Toni, it was terrifying. I think even they were surprised at your reaction.” Pepper slowed down, and breathed to calm herself. Pepper stayed silent and Toni's mind was too foggy to do anything.

Toni tried to shake herself out of it. How long had they been gone? Fury generally had Toni check in once a week, but Clint would probably notice she was gone. They had a standing weekly sparring session to allow Toni to vent her frustrations after having to deal with the board. The board that still didn't respect her, that still belittled her inventions and treated her like a child. There was no better way to work out repressed rage than beating the shit out of someone that you couldn't actually injure. The spar was only cancelled in the event of an Avengers call or SHIELD post for Clint. Toni just couldn't remember if Clint had told her that he had a job.

She steeled herself and finally rolled over, pushing herself up. Her chest was sorer than it had been since she made the new element, she peered down her shirt and couldn't help the soft “Shit” that escaped. The arc reactor wasn't glowing as strongly as usual. With everything that had happened recently and so much power being used by the Iron Man suit that she hadn’t switched out the power core in a while and the Taser probably damaged the casing. She turned back to Pepper.

“Well... Pepper. There's something that I need to tell you and probably should have told you a while ago. I am Iron Man.” Toni waited.

Pepper’s eyes widened, “O-okay. I feel like there’s more you want to say, but I’m reserving the right to freak out as soon as we’re out of this.”

And wasn’t that the best case scenario. Perfect Pepper could always be depended on in a crisis, the one to hold everything together until it could manage on their own. And then, only then would she take the time to let herself break. It had happened after Afghanistan, it had happened during an attempted corporate takeover. It was her superpower. And because it was the best case scenario, Toni let out a relieved sigh and moved to sit across from her.

Over the next hour Toni explained, in a low voice so nothing could be picked up if someone was listening in, what had happened to her in Afghanistan. She skimmed over some of the messier details about her surgery and the forms of torture that had been used. Pepper didn't need to be weighed down with all of Toni's shit. Toni did let Pepper see the arc reactor, though Toni wouldn't tell her that the flicker was not normal. She finally gave explanations as to why her behavior had changed so often after Afghanistan, explaining her volatility when the reactor was causing issues, how sketchy she had been after Obie died and finally letting Pepper know why she let the Avengers stay in her home.

When she finished her explanation she looked up at Pepper, who sat there primly, hands folded in her lap. “How many people know?”

“Just you, me, Rhodey, Clint and Fury.”

“Clint knows?”

“Fury assigned him to be my babysitter back when,” she gestured at her chest, “was going all wonky. Once I got past the ‘him drugging me to save my life’ we kind of hit it off.”

“God you're stupid,” Pepper said, pulling Toni into a tight hug. “I'm so glad that you're okay.”

“Yeah. So am I.”

Still in the middle of their embrace, Pepper whispered in her ear, “I’m still going to freak out about this as soon as we’re home.” And what could Toni say to that?

After that they waited. There wasn't much else to do. They curled up on the sparse bed and chatted for a bit, got caught up on all the things that Toni hadn't been able to tell and Pepper hadn't known to ask.

Hours later, once most of their topics had been exhausted and they were just lying there the door opened. Toni immediately rose from the bed, placing her in front of Pepper.

“Hello boys.” She purred at the two men standing in the doorway. Pepper moved to stand next to her and Toni quietly asked, “Stay down?” Pepper nodded slightly and continued to sit on the bed.

“Aw, are you protecting your girlfriend?”

“I don't think it would matter to you if I was. You'd never be able to get someone as pretty as me.” Thug number one punched her in the stomach, causing her to double over.

Thug number two started walking towards Pepper. “Hey,” Toni wheezed, “don't you think your boss-man is just waiting to see me. Come on. Chop-chop.” That got their attention and earned Toni another punch to the stomach and some rough-handling to get her arms behind her back. As she was being escorted out of the room she told Pepper, “If you hear explosions, run.”

Walking down the corridors Toni talked at all the men. “I'm impressed with your muscles. I'm assuming steroids are involved, which is pretty unfortunate for you because they make your balls shrink and from the look of you guys I don't think there's too much more going on anywhere else. But you guys are pretty tough right? Has anyone ever told you what having a period is like? Cause you're about to find out.” One of them looked down at his crotch, “Dude, no. I meant mine. I'm gonna need to stop by the ladies room. If I don't get a tampon soon you guys are going to be cleaning up blood, and while I'm sure that you've dealt with plenty of blood in your life I’m also sure you aren't going to want to have to deal with this...” She kept talking until two of them got disgusted enough to shove her off in a bathroom. “BAG,” She yelled out at them. Not two minutes later her bag was shoved through a crack in the door before it slammed shut again.

Toni rolled her eyes. Typical man, no problem with blood until it came from lady-parts. She quickly started cannibalizing the bag, the same bag she had been equipping when Rhodey had visited. She took off her business jacket and blouse. Trembling hands attached wires to the only power source available to her, the arc reactor. She put her clothes back on, happy that it was cold outside meaning everything she was wearing had long sleeves that could disguise the wires wrapping up her arms.

She took a deep breath, wishing she had had more time to work on the tech. She flushed the toilet, dropped a tampon wrapper in the trash and washed her hands. She was pretty sure that the assholes wouldn’t be smart enough to check for evidence but Toni Stark wasn’t one to do something half-assed.

She opened the door and threw her purse at the nearest thug, “I'm pretty sure you want that back. Besides that floral pattern suits you better than it suited me.” She smiled wide, using all her teeth, knowing from experience that the smile tended to unnerve people.

She was corralled into a large bright room, temporarily blinding her. The two thugs took her over to the wall and put her arms in chains slightly above her head.

“Hello Miss Stark.”

Toni’s eyes finally cleared so she could look around “Zeke? Ezekial Stane? I haven't seen you in years.”

“I think you mean 4 years. You know, right before you killed my Father.”

Toni rolled her eyes. “Really, this... this is what gets me. Not fighting robots and genetically engineered monsters, or even a lab explosion. You. God. Fuck, this is so stupid.”

“You think this is stupid? Do you know what I'm capable of?”

Toni had to keep herself from laughing. “I faced your father, kid.” She spat at him, “Do you really think that you'll be able to do better than him.”

Zeke made a motion and Thug 1 and 2 stepped forward to put her in manacles. “Isn't this a little cliché Zeke?”

He ignored the barb. “I'm going to make you hurt, and when I'm done, I will kill you.” He promised.

“Do you know the details of your father's death?” Toni's head tilted, and Zeke stilled.

“I know you killed him, Iron Man, when he was just trying to make a business proposal.”

Toni laughed, a raw choked thing. “You're father set up for me to be kidnapped in Afghanistan. When that didn't work, he tried to take the only good thing that came from it, and him taking it almost killed me. In the end, I wanted my property back, and he died to keep it from me.”

She could tell that Zeke didn't want to hear her side of the story and was prepared when the first punch came. She grinned internally, it was always good to get your opponent off-balance. People made mistakes when they were angry.

She coughed, “Did you know your father killed your mother?” He paused, “Or, at least, I always assumed that was the case.” She wasn't prepared for Zeke hitting her head. She saw stars momentarily, which allowed him to move closer.

“I know all about that power source. It might have kept you alive for these extra months but it will be your downfall.”

“I always figured that would be the case, but let’s get back to your mother. That disease came on so quickly after she filed for divorce, didn’t it.” He let out a couple more hits. And she started laughing. After Afghanistan, this was nothing.

The day progressed with Zeke taking his anger out on Toni as she egged him on. He finally started to grow bored. He motioned to the Thug that was standing near the door, Toni couldn't tell which one he was anymore due to the blood dripping in her eyes. However she could tell when a struggling Pepper was brought in.

Pepper stopped dead when she saw Toni's condition.

“Hey Potts, have you enjoyed the spa? I've found this massage a little rough for my liking.” Toni mumbled around a swelling jaw.

“I agree that the service leaves something to be desired. I'm planning on lodging a formal complaint.” She turned to Zeke, who was wiping off his knuckles with a lovely paisley tea towel. “Hello Zeke. Pity, I was so happy thinking you were living a normal life.”

Zeke ignored Pepper, turning back to Toni. “Toni dear, I haven't decided. Should I take out the reactor and make Miss Potts watch you die, and then kill her, or kill her and then take the arc reactor so that you die knowing that you are the reason that one of the two people who has ever cared about you is dead?”

Toni let her head sink a little, knowing the danger in what she was about to do. Moving her fingers quickly over the electronics in her hands, she could feel the wires running up her arms starting to heat up as the power flowed. She moved her wrists to the extent that the manacles would allow and aimed both repulsors at Zeke.

She fired.

He flew across the room. Toni used the same move to break the chains, she could risk getting the manacles off without blowing off her wrists so she decided to leave them as a fashion accessory. It made her feel better. She easily took out the thug that was coming towards her but felt the energy level of the reactor getting dangerously low.

She saw Pepper struggling with her Thug and yelled “SING,” a reference she knew that Pepper would get. She saw Pepper breath and in and prep before the last thug was blocking her view. Toni got into the sparring stance that Clint had taught her. She dodged the first punch and jabbed at his stomach. On his next swing she adjusted so he hit her shoulder. She used his momentum against him, flipping him over her hip. He landed hard and she was immediately on him, using her forearm to block his ability to breath.

Once he had lost consciousness she dropped to her knee and was surprised when she felt a hand helping her up. “Thought I told you to run.”

“I told you that you were stupid earlier. I wasn't going to let you take on all of them alone.”

“Thanks Pepp,” Toni leaned her head on Pepper's shoulder. “You're the best.”

“You know it, and I know it.”

Pepper started to move them towards the door, when Toni tapped her back. “Get Zeke's phone. We need a ride.”

Pepper nodded, leaning Toni against a wall before searching the young man's pockets.

Toni couldn't move of her own volition. She looked down, her shirt was in tatters from the heat and she could feel the residual burns from the wires, leading from the reactor to her wrists where they connected with the repulsors. She was pretty sure at least one of her ribs was cracked with the rest bruised to hell and she was pretty sure that her face wasn't recognizable.

Pepper distracted her, pushing the phone into her hands. She let Pepper guide them out of the building while Toni accessed the phone. She made it a calling beacon for the Avengers and JARVIS and was happy to make this escape more quickly than others she had.

Stumbling into the light Toni sighed, “Of course it was an abandoned warehouse outside the city. No creativity these young ones.”

Toni swore that she had only closed her eyes for a second but Pepper was shaking her awake. “Toni, I see helicopters.”

Pepper helped her stand and they waited. The helicopters were still a good way out when Toni heard a clatter behind them.

There was a gunshot. Lucky, Toni thought, that she was standing in front of, or rather behind, Pepper and caught the blast. There was pain radiating from just above her hip. Good thing Zeke was as a bad a shot as Obie. She steadied herself, found her target and took aim with the repulsors', letting loose with the remaining power. She stumbled at the recoil.

She could feel the familiar pressure on her chest, looked down, pushing at the tatters of her shirt. It was flickering, more dark than blue. “I really hope Clint has his new quiver... I'm just, gonna, sit, for a bit.” Her voiced hitched, filled with pain at every flicker. “Pepper,” she couldn’t stop the full body spasm, “fuck, this is gonna sound so stupid. You’re my best friend, I love you. And Rhodey. Just tell him that for me.”

“Tell him yourself Toni.” Pepper was starting at her, eyes dry but wide. “You can't do this to me, not after I only just found out.”

“So bossy Miss Potts.”

“It’s in my job description.” Pepper’s hands were flitting over Toni’s body, trying to find something to fix.

“Pepp. You know my business better than I do. Take care of her, and break it to JARVIS gently.” She waited until they made eye contact. “And please, let the Avengers keep living in the tower.”

“Toni, this is so cliché, I know how much you hate clichés. Just stop talking like this. What can I do to help?”

Toni laughed weakly. “It's fucking shrapnel Pepp. You're just as helpless here as I am. At least in Afghanistan I had Yinsen...” She trailed off. She wondered if Yinsen would introduce her to his family. She didn't exactly have anybody waiting for her up there, if there was an up there, maybe her mother. Though, who knew if that was really where she would be going.

She saw the copter land and Pepper stand up to yell at someone. It seemed like Clint was next to her in no time.

“Took you long enough.” She said.

“Sorry, got a little side-tracked trying to convince Rhodey not to step into an Iron Man suit to come himself.” Clint was already fumbling around with the latch at the bottom of the quiver.

“You seriously can't open that? It's not even child-proofed.” He passed the quiver to her, where even with shaky hands she had it opened within seconds, while he moved away the tatters of her shirt.

She heard a faint “What the hell is that?”

“Always knew you just wanted me for my body.” She wheezed.

“Sorry, you aren't my type.”

“I'm everyone's type, but lucky for you I'm a cougar, and you’re far too old for me.”

“I am not that old!” He said indignantly, already moving to remove the old reactor.

She stopped him. “Your hands are too big.”

He moved over and Pepper and Natasha's faces came into view. “Need one of you to turn it right. There's a wire there,” she gestured at the reactor Clint was holding, “needs to make contact with” she shuddered a bit, “shit, needs to make contact with the bottom.”

Natasha quickly removed the old reactor and worked to connect the wires while Toni shook underneath her hands. The light returned to bright blue and Toni looked at Clint, “Why does it always taste like coconut. The metal I can deal with, but why coconut?” And swiftly passed out as her body convulsed.

Everything was hazy. Her eyes were open and she could see there were people around her, but she couldn’t manage to focus on what they were saying. The vague shapes suddenly started moving all over the place, the pattern less noise getting louder and louder until everything went dark again.

The only thing she could feel were her fingers. She stared at them, watching them wiggle, fascinated. In later moments she would remember that this was why she hated the good drugs. One, a little pain never hurt anyone... wait. She shook her head, she knew what she meant. Two, the good drugs made her stupid in a way that alcohol, pot, and crack hadn’t. Ecstasy had, which is why she still avoided it. 

She giggled a little, still watching her fingers wave back at her, which woke up whoever was sitting next to her.

“Toni, you’re awake!”

It took her a minute to realize that someone was speaking to her, and another minute to figure out what was being said. “Yeah, fingers are strange...” She strained her eyes, trying to make the figure in front of her make more sense. “Pepper?”

There was a sigh. “They put you on the good stuff.” 

Toni smiled, “Yeah.” She chuckled to herself. 

“It’s Rhodey.” 

“RHODEY!” She tried to move the rest of her arms, which felt heavy at her side. 

“Toni, don’t. Your arms are badly burnt, you shouldn’t move them too much.” 

“I missed you so much. And did you know that Zeke hates me, it doesn’t really surprise me; most people don’t like me. It’s easier than trying to figure out who’s an awful person. ‘Sides, that’s what I have you and Pepper and Clint for.” She would have kept talking but she was distracted by the tube coming out from the back of her hand. 

“Toni, go back to sleep.”

“But the....”

“Toni, I’m going to be here for the rest of the night, and Pepper will be here tomorrow.” 

“Pepp, she’s okay right?” Toni wrinkled her nose. There was something that happened, Pepper needed help.

“Pepper is fine, scared about you, but fine. She’ll be here tomorrow.” 

Toni nodded happily. “Rhodey, just remember, hands are awesome.”

She woke up late the next day, still feeling the drugs calming her down and adding weight to her arms and legs, to Pepper sitting on a chair at the foot of her bed. Pepper was bent over a tablet and Toni assumed she was working on something for Stark Industries and didn’t want to interrupt her, after all, Toni had done enough to interrupt Pepper’s life, including getting her kidnapped. 

Watching Pepper work was calming, at least until Pepper looked up, then any semblance of calm left the room. The restrained Pepper of moments before evaporated into a flurry of motion. The tablet clattered to the floor as Pepper jumped up to come around the bed. 

“Toni, you need to stop doing that to me. I can’t handle the stress. And the amount of your chest that’s been carved out for the reactor is terrifying. And Stark Industries should try and produce those, but smaller to market, it would more than make up for the loss of weapons, and God Toni you can’t almost die on me again.” She babbled through the entire speech

Toni sat there kind of wide eyed, “Pepp, I got you kidnapped.” 

“Toni, Zeke kidnapped us. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Pepp, I’m just... I’m so sorry.” The tears were prickling the back of her eyes.

“Toni, don’t cry, if you cry then I’m going to and Rhodey’s gonna walk in here and make fun of us.” Pepper said starting to tear up as the tears were rolling down Toni’s cheeks. 

Rhodey did not actually walk in the room and the two women managed to collect themselves and talk for a little bit until Toni’s meds knocked her out again. 

Her eyes opened to a pair of eyes less than a foot away from her own. She yelped and tried to move back, but was stopped by a pillow. 

“Hey calm down bitch-tits.”

She breathed in heavily “Who you calling bitch-tits, asshole?”

He shrugged, “I deserved that. Good to see you back in the land of the living.” 

Toni glanced down at her body, moving every appendage one at a time, making sure everything still worked. “Thanks for the last minute save there.”

“Hate to say I told you so... wait, no. I love to say I told you so. I told you it was a good idea to keep a spare reactor for out in the field.” 

Toni rolled her eyes, “Fine, you were right and I was wrong. You’re smart, but I’m smarter and I’m not even gonna pretend to say that you’re prettier than I am because we both know that would be a bold-faced lie.” She glanced around the room, “Could you hand me that tablet?”

“Think you can use it with your arms being a bit wonky.” 

Toni laughed, “If you think is the worst I’ve been even in the last year, you are sorely mistaken.” 

He handed her the tablet. “You’ve been worse than this? When?”

Toni started the tablet, and, fingers moving swiftly, connected herself to the Stark Tower. “Uh, I think it was last time Doom attacked. The robots crashed the suit up pretty badly, I had trouble walking for a bit and at least two of my ribs were cracked, but not broken.” She said absentmindedly, tapping away. “I walked through the kitchen and grabbed a coffee cup and Bruce tried to talk to me about getting help thinking I was in an abusive relationship. Sweet, considering he can’t stand to be a room with me”

“Dammit Toni, the whole reason I was allowed to know was so that I could help you with things like that.”

She spoke into the tablet. “JARVIS. Code Alpha 294 Rho 353 Delta.” 

“Yes Miss.” The tablet replied. 

She looked up. “If you really want to help me, could you go grab me a coffee? My body chemistry is all screwed up. I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten some sort of caffeine. Look at my hands,” she said, raising a hand into the air and letting it shake oh so dramatically, “I can’t even keep them steady.” Clint just raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. 

Toni broke out her puppy dog eyes. With a fond snort and a light push to her shoulder Clint got up and left the room to sneak her in some coffee. 

Once Clint was outside the room Toni wrote a quick note to Clint on the StarkPad and started to shuffle around. She didn’t want to take out the IV or any of the heart rate monitors until she absolutely had to. If sirens went off her escape attempt would be pointless. 

Awkwardly shimmying into the pair of sweats that had been left by her bed she stood up. She tucked the hospital gown into the pants, knowing that with all her injuries there was no way she was going to be able to deal with a shirt or a jacket without some sort of help. 

Looking around the room she spotted items that had clearly been left by her friends; Pepper’s sunglasses on the bedside table, a few chewed on pens from Clint, a muffin that Rhodey clearly hadn’t finished… Toni grabbed the sunglasses, they were always the best disguise even if the celebrities overused them. Shoving the remains of the muffin in her mouth she gently pulled the IV from her hand and ripped off all the other cords attached to her body. 

The heart rate monitor flat-lined. She didn’t want to know how Clint would react to her being gone, but that just meant that she needed to move that much faster. Sticking her head into the hallway, she waited until the nurses were turned the other way before attempting to saunter down the hallway. It wasn’t so much a saunter as a walk with an awkward hitch to her step from the wound on her hip, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that.

The hallways were suspiciously empty as she walked through them and it almost made her wonder if Jarvis had made some of his own improvements to give him power in the hospital. It wasn’t like she visited there all that often, but having an overprotective AI did come in handy at times. For example, the distress call that she had sent to Jarvis meant that he would send a car to her GPS location as quickly as possible, and with the hospital there was already a set plan. 

The third floor of the parking garage was full of cars; mostly dirty and beat up. Fortunately, at least at the moment, the shiny town car that Happy was driving was easy for her to find. 

She almost struggled to open the door, inwardly cursing at herself. Even if she had been out for a while and on the good drugs, a near death experience shouldn’t have her as winded as she was. It was almost disgusting. 

“Hey Hap, It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too Ms. Stark, glad that you’re all in one piece, from what I heard it was close.” 

“You know me Happy, always struggling to stay in one piece.” 

Silence filled the car on the short drive home. Toni had been lucky to find Happy in the first place. The bodyguard/chauffer had been with her for years and at times was willing to indulge her ridiculous whims, including driving her home after she looked like she had been hit with a Mack truck. However, with the Avengers living in the tower, and Clint acting as Toni’s personal escort to all of the events, Happy’s job had been delegated to mostly chauffer and even acting as a bodyguard for Pepper. 

Still, Toni knew what she was paying for, and Happy knew it too. It was no surprise that Happy knew to take the back streets and use the secret entrance to the Tower that Toni normally just used when she needed to avoid the paparazzi. At least this time she wasn’t avoiding the paparazzi, she was avoiding a group of people who could be much more annoying. 

She stepped out of the car, almost stumbling, but waved Happy off. After typing her access code into the elevator she slumped against the wall. It never took long to get to the secret lab, but she was so tired. 

The doors opened to her lab and she almost wanted to cry with joy. 

“Hey J?”

“Yes Miss, may I inquire if you’re okay?”

Her face scrunched, “I’m not doing so hot right now J, could you call one of the bots to help me get out of these clothes.” 

She heard the whirr of the machines before she had even finished the sentence. 

Dumm-E and You weren’t always the most delicate of her creations (that clearly went to Jarvis who was so perfect that Toni couldn’t even brag about him) but they seemed to recognize that Toni was actually fragile and pulled lightly at the gown, bringing over one of the large hoodies that Toni would wear at night or when she was inexplicably cold. 

Even with the help, she couldn’t help but to wince when certain movements sent jolts of pain down her side. Still, she patted the bots on the head and went to the cot she had stuffed in the corner. 

“J, we’re on emergency shut-down procedures. Let Pepper, Rhodey, and Clint know I’m safe. No alerts for access to the primary lab, usual alerts if anyone tries to access down here.”

“Are you sure that you don’t want to let Miss Potts, Mr. Barton or Mr. Rhodes know of your location?” She was already laying down on the cot, trying to get comfortable, the dregs of whatever drugs they had given her dragging her down to a slightly-pained sleep.

She yawned, “J, you know what the emergency shut-down procedure is. “ she yawned again, “I need to recuperate. Hold down the fort for me.” 

With that she curled up into her nest and tried to sleep, ignoring the ache that wouldn’t seem to go away. 

Toni woke up to the klaxon blaring. It startled her awake which lead to a groan as she pulled muscles and stiches that weren’t supposed to move. “J, turn it off.” She coughed, voice gruff with pain and sleep. 

“Sorry Miss, but you did ask for the alerts to the main lab to be shut off, and the klaxon is the traditional alert for your secondary lab. Also, Mr. Barton is currently attempting to access this lab.”

Toni pushed a hand through her hair before wincing at the tug to the burns on her arms, “How long has it been since I left the hospital?”

“It has been approximately two hours and thirty-four minutes.”

The amount of time actually surprised her. Usually he was much quicker on the draw. “Go ahead and let him in.” She attempted to push herself up to a sitting position, it was slow going.

Within two minutes he dropped in from the ceiling. 

“Really Barton, two hours?” She had finally succeeded in sitting up, though she was feeling every tiny move.

“Shut up Toni.”

“Did it take you the full two hours to realize I was here, or did Jarvis give you more trouble than you expected.”

“Shut UP Toni.”

“That, and in the end, I let you in here, I mean you must really be los-“

“I SAID SHUT UP TONI.”

Toni turned to him, face stony. “Why?”

“Do you know how scared you made all of us? It’s lucky Pepper thought to check with Happy in the end. She was halfway to calling in the ridiculous number of favors she earned. Meanwhile, Rhodey commandeered the suit you made for him and is out with the rest of the Avengers scouring your normal hideouts in case you’re enough of a moron to try to fight crime with a fucking bullet hole.”

“Like I would be the first person in our motley crew to fight with a bullet hole,” she scoffed, as if said bullet hole wasn’t radiating pain through her entire core and down her hip. 

He took a step closer, “And you used my friendship and trust to trick me into leaving for just long enough that you could escape.” 

Toni couldn’t argue that point. But she could still argue. “You wouldn’t have let me leave.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t have let you leave, Toni you were there for three days! You’re still healing, you can barely stand as it is right now. You need medical attention.” 

“Right, I need medical attention, because clearly those doctors are going to care more about making sure that I’m okay, that I’m not having flashbacks, than about the thing that’s keeping me alive…. Almost everyone who has known how this works and what it’s doing has used it as leverage against me. I can’t handle one more person using it as a threat.” He didn’t even try to hide a scoff. “I see you discounting what I’m saying but remember; the man who treated me like I was his daughter, that I thought of as a father betrayed me because I was too difficult and he wanted the benefit of the technology without the problem the creator caused. And, three days ago apparently, that man’s fucking son tried to do the same thing. Hospitals bring back bad memories Clint. The drugs make sure I can’t fight them. You should know this Clint, and I can’t,” her voice broke, “I can’t deal with that right now.”

“Toni…”

She couldn’t look at him. “Down here I have Jarvis, Dumm-E, Butterfingers and U to help me. That’s all I need.”

“Toni, look at me.” Toni hadn’t even realized that her gaze had drifted to the floor. It was harder to look Clint in the eye than it should have been. “People care about you. I was terrified that something had happened. You can’t go through this shut-down,” he gestured to the lab and the precautions that had been taken to keep it secret, “while there are people who care about you.”

“Fine,” Toni gave in, “I’ll alert Pepper, Rhodey and Fury, because I know you’d remind me that I technically still work with him.” 

Clint looked disappointed in her and she couldn’t figure out why. 

“What?”

“You need to talk to the rest of the Avengers.”

“Why, I don’t want them to treat me differently just because they know I have a mechanical heart.”

She and Clint had maintained eye contact through the whole conversation, which made her more nervous when Clint couldn’t keep it up anymore. Up until then he held the high ground in the fight and she didn’t want to know what he had done to lose it. She kept waiting, hoping that he wasn’t going to say what she feared in the back of her mind. Finally she tired of waiting, “What did you do?”

“Remember when I said that you needed a spare reactor in the field and that someone needed to tell the others that Iron Man had a heart condition?”

Toni didn’t like where that was going. “And...”

“Well, I might have told them with some amount of detail what was wrong with Iron Man.”

She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. “So they all know that I’m Iron Man.” 

“Kinda?”

“Fuck.” Clint took a step towards her. She backed away and hissed at the movement. She heard the whirr of the bots and Clint’s cursing and didn’t bother to watch the bots chase Clint from the lab. JARVIS even knew to close the doors behind him. “I hope you shut the vents down again?’

“Of course Miss. I have also taken the liberty of contacting Miss Potts and Mr. Rhodes to inform them that you are home, relatively safe, and currently no more injured than you were at the hospital.” Toni couldn’t help but to grin at that.

“Giving you a sense of sarcasm might have been the best thing I’ve ever done.”

“Well I learned from the best.” 

“Thanks J,” she slumped back on the bed. “I can’t deal with this right now. Can you field for me? Just let me know when the people hammering at the door start to get too desperate.” She turned over. After laying still for a few moments she asked, “Is there any chance you could order me a pizza for when I wake up?”

“Of course…”

“Miss, Miss? Miss Potts wants to speak to you.”

Toni rolled over and groaned at the pressure on her ribs and the pulling of the delicate burned skin on her arms. An arm bumped into the bed near her hand. She looked up to see that Dumm-E had a bottle of water and some drugs. “Oh thank god...” She took the Tylenol with a swig of the water and told JARVIS. “Does she have my pizza?”

“No Miss, however the pizza is waiting for you in the kitchen. I have been trying to keep your houseguests from indulging but you might want to collect it.” 

Groaning, she turned over. Using Dumm-E, pushed herself up and took the elevator up to her main lab. 

The door opened, “Morning Pepp.” 

“Toni. You know you should have stayed in the hospital for at least a little bit longer. We were worried sick and you have no idea the kind of hell I’ve been getting from Fury for losing you.” 

Toni brushed past her, “Pepp, can this wait a little bit, please.” She took her second elevator to get to the main level, proud of the fact that she only had a slight limp.

“I will not wait, I am furious and you are not going to be able to...”

“Pepp, the doctors have never seen something like this.” She tapped at the reactor while the elevator dinged, and Toni started her hobble towards the kitchen, “The likelihood that they would have let me go without trying to look at this, to see if there was some way to remove it, is so low that I would rather come back here and let people who won’t treat me like a freak watch over me.” 

“Oh, Toni...”

Stopping dead, she pushed at the spot on her forehead that was pulsing with a headache. “God Pepp, I can only deal with so much pity. I know that you’re going to need your freak out, and I know that’s going to involve a lot of yelling at me. But for the moment, can I just convalesce in peace.”

Pepper was speechless. Using the momentary silence Toni walked into the kitchen to find Clint eyeing her pizza. “Hey asshole, hands off the merchandise.”

“I might have listened to that if you hadn’t disappeared earlier.” 

“Toni, stop changing the subject. You aren’t cleared to be home.” Pepper followed her into the kitchen.

“At this point I am just as capable as fixing myself up as those doctors, if not more. Just ask Clint.”

Attempting to placate Pepper, Clint’s hands went up releasing the piece of pizza he had been separating from all the others, “Hey, my job was to make sure she was safe and I did that to the best of my ability.”

“Miss Potts, you might like to know that Toni is avoiding taking the stronger medications she has been prescribed.”

“Traitor!” Toni hissed at Jarvis. “I haven’t even had the chance to get them.”

“As if you would take them then.” Replied Jarvis sulkily.

“Toni!”

Toni tugged on the pizza box and held it close to her and tried to leave the situation. As a fully grown woman she didn’t want anyone prying into her business, and that Pepper still didn’t know the limits was frustrating. 

Then, the last that that Toni wanted happen. Captain America walked into the hallway.

“Is everything okay?” For a second it almost seemed like there was sympathy in his eyes. 

“Fucking peachy Cap.” 

“Toni you need to take your medications.”

She shoved the pizza box at the Captain and turned to face Pepper. “I am not a child! I told you why I don’t take those medications and if that’s not enough, Clint knows too. Ask him for an explanation… I know more about this thing in my chest than anyone else in the world. The last time someone tried to fuck with it I almost died and had to crawl my way to my lab. Although at this point I bet you’re kind of wishing I hadn’t had a spare. Then you’d be saved all this trouble. In the meantime, I will be in my lab! The bots will watch over me! Jarvis, traitor that he is, will be watching over me! If anything pressing happens you will be informed. Now leave me the fuck alone!”

She knew immediately that she had been too harsh. The devastation on Pepper’s face only backed that up. But she needed a minute to process. Even a moment where she wasn’t in pain would be a marvelous thing. But that was what she couldn’t have. Instead, she grabbed the pizza from Cap, wincing a little as he relinquished his hold. 

Clint caught up with her in the elevator. After grabbing the pizza from her hands he raised his eyebrows. “You know, Pepper didn’t deserve that.”

Toni was mentally cursing. Of course she understood that her anger was misplaced, but realizing that her current way of living was going to have to change didn’t exactly fill her with warm fuzzy feelings. “I know, and I will apologize… just, not now.”

Clint stuck around for part of the afternoon. Once Toni had been settled back in her nest, Clint gave her back her pizza. When she was settled she patted the spot next to her, hoping that Clint would be up for offering her some companionship. Even if he had made her life at least temporarily more difficult, she felt vulnerable and wanted someone to sit next to her without needing something. With a small, bittersweet smile he joined her. They watched the movie eating slices of the pizza with her tucked under his arm. 

Several hours later she was shaken awake. “Hey, Sweets,” they rarely used nice pet names, it was saved for serious moments, generally when no one else was around. Unless the pet names were embarrassing, then it was a free-for-all. But there was no one else around, which meant this was serious business. 

“What’s happening?”

“With you out of commission… they’re calling me in to headquarters, they want someone to fill in for you, and I’m trying to see if we can get Rhodes, or someone to fill in instead of some random agent.” 

“Don’t, I’ll be fine. I can still fly the suit and fight.”

“Toni, you could barely get your own pizza.” 

“Clint, I can’t trust this to anyone else. Rhodey has a job. I’ll be fine.”

“We at least need to have a backup plan.”

“What about Pepper, she’ll already fit in the suits?”

“Do you really want to put Pepper in danger,” Toni slumped. 

“Damn…. Barnes!”

“Cap’s partially brainwashed ex-KGB agent friend?”

“Remind you of someone? Maybe someone whose name starts with Na and ends in tasha?”

“Sure, he’s psycho enough that he’ll get along with me. It’s practically required.”

“Screw you,”

Clint laughed. “I’ll talk to Fury, I think I can swing it.”

Toni doesn’t want to watch him leaves. To compensate for the sudden silence, she motions to JARVIS to turn on a movie and then motions again to have the sound blast through the speakers.

If you looked at the situation, and didn’t know Toni, it would look like she was lonely. Clint was away on a job and it was too soon after the fight for Toni to apologize to Pepper, even if she added it to her mental list. But all of that information was unnecessary, because it was Toni and Toni doesn’t get lonely. Isn’t allowed to get lonely. Toni created her own friends so she would never be lonely. 

Curled up on her cot with Dummi and Butterfingers still isn’t cutting it, so Toni talked to JARVIS over the various movies playing. He had improved so much since she had first built him. The movie wasn’t interesting enough to compete with her wonder if what she had created.

As she stood, JARVIS turned the movies off and it was clear that he was watching her as she gingerly stretched, trying to make sure her stiches wouldn’t rip. She rolled her eyes at one of the sensors that acted as his eyes before slowly making her way through the maze of half-finished inventions. It wouldn’t do to just leave them in their half-finished state. Besides, there was no problem with stalling as long as something productive came from it. She had JARVIS bring up the map of her lab and flagged everything that should be scrapped, made notes about what she might be able to update, and cleared off her desktop. There would be no heavy lifting, not with the bullet wound in her hip and the range of bruises that felt like they went beyond the muscle. Any physical projects were going to have to wait until she was healed, or could conscript Clint or Rhodey into helping.

Being able to clear her office did help her clear her head. There was something about balling up the hologram of a file that made things feel more organized. Plus, once JARVIS was added to the equation it always became more of a game, testing her ability to hit a target from a distance (whether or not JARVIS messed with her throw wasn’t important). It was a productive way to spend an afternoon, but as she looked at the virtual map and couldn’t find anything else to work on she reassessed the stress on her body. Even if she had only been standing for a short amount of time she was sweating and tired. 

At her grimace JARVIS broke in, “It takes time to heal Miss.”

“I know that, I should make something to fix that.”

“Fix what, Miss?”

“How much time this takes… My purse prototype caused some issues, Iron Man could use an update and I’m pretty sure there are some upgrades I could make to the tower, but no…”

She didn’t hear so much as feel JARVIS sigh.

“Drama queen.” She muttered while heading upstairs. Even if she had outfitted the lab to suit her needs for a couple of days she needed an actual shower. The shower in her room had a bench, and multiple shower heads. Water would fly from every angle and the water pressure….that would probably have to be turned down… But once it was in her head it was all she could think about. Suddenly the antiseptic smell of the hospital seemed to radiate out of her pores. She was followed by the aura of discomfort of convalescence. 

She avoided the main areas, not wanting to see any of her teammates. It always surprised her, how even with such a large living area that the Avengers all still seemed to live in each other’s pockets. It wasn’t quite enough though, she ran into Bruce, who like Cap, seemed to show some level of concern.

The emotion he showed didn’t confuse her, she knew exactly why he was concerned. It was a combination of guilt and worry for a teammate. In the end it wouldn’t matter. She might technically be Iron Man but they didn’t want her as a teammate. Instead of talking, she nodded and tried to go about her way.

“Miss Stark?” 

Her stride hitched. She could see her doorway at the end of the hall and a large part of her wanted to brush him off and get to her own room where she could take a warm shower and luxuriate in new clothes before returning to her lab. Yet, no matter how much she wanted to avoid everyone she found the doctor’s intelligence too much of a draw to piss him off.

“Yes Dr. Banner?”

“How are you feeling?”

Her laughter was sharp and short. “Like shit. Was there anything else you wanted?”

His face twitched, like he wasn’t sure how to proceed. “Steve, the Captain mentioned to me that it sounded like you’ve haven’t let a doctor give you a through check-up since the,” he gestured towards the light glowing softly through her shirt. 

Toni nodded. Bruce continued, “I know that I may not be a medical doctor but I do have some experience and if you’re uncomfortable with other medical professionals, maybe I could offer my assistance.” 

She thought it through for a moment. While Bruce didn’t trust her, that distrust wasn’t mutual. Bruce’s interest in the arc reactor had nothing to do with a possible monetary gain, merely scientific curiosity. 

“I believe that I could find that acceptable, doctor. Meet in the lab in, oh,” she started to calculate how long it would take for her to shower and get dressed, and had to recalculate to add time for a few other comforts. “two hours?”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

“Shouldn’t that be my line?” Toni said sauntering away. 

Toni had enjoyed herself. Getting her clothes off had been a literal pain, and she had had to make sure that the coverings over her bullet wound were watertight (and it had been so soon after the hospital that she was mostly okay on that front). The hot water went a long was to soothe a number of the aches and pains that had resided in her body since her hospital visit. Even better, putting on a clean pair of sweatpants and shrugging on a loose robe meant that she felt warm. Not the burning heat that left marks on her arm, or the sharp flare from the gun wound on her hip, or the sparks that came from pulling at the stiches, or that dry arid heat that sometimes swarmed out of her throat as a reminder of Afghanistan, but warm in a way that only conveyed comfort. 

The mirror, however, had caused some problems. While not as shallow as her public person would imply, there was still that shred of dignity that made it hard to want to look at the bruises left uncovered on her face. There were already weeks ahead where she knew to expect the shifting color, from the vivid black and blue to the lurid yellows and greens that would imply some level of healing had occurred. To her it looked like weakness. Even if she had survived she hadn’t acted fast enough. And there she was; bruised and beaten, having just yelled at the person kidnapped with her for caring. It was easiest to avoid the mirror.

She sighed and steeled herself for meeting with Bruce. It was always hard to tamp herself down around him. But it had to be done, she respected him too much to force the unbridled manic energy she could put out. Especially after he had specifically asked her to back off. There was no one in the hallways, thank god. It hadn’t even been two days and she was already sick of people checking up on her. She understood that they were scared, but she couldn’t take the pity and the fear. 

By the time that Bruce made it down Toni had gotten irritated enough that she needed to start a new project. 

The polite cough was what alerted her to his presence. 

“Hey Bruce,” she said, still focused on her project, “How much of this physical requires me to sit still, because we might have a problem.” 

There was silence. Toni mentally slapped herself, she should been more straight-forward, in more control of her body. It was still disappointing, she had assumed that him offering help was an apology, and it might have been, but that didn’t mean they were friends. 

After wiping the hologram clean she turned and looked at a table, considering jumping on it for three seconds before the pain radiating all over her body reminded her that movement wasn’t a good idea. She sat in a chair, like a reasonable person. 

She unbelted the robe and let it fall. When she looked back up, she noticed that Bruce was looking away. 

“Come on Bruce, you’re far from the first person to see these, and I know how much charity work you did in whatever godforsaken countries you visited, these clearly aren’t the first pair you’ve seen.”

Bruce coughed, “Doesn’t mean that this isn’t highly personal and invasive.”

When he looked up she could see him look over the bruises lining up and down her body. He looked unhappy, but then how many people would look happy to see someone so injured, even if it was someone they didn’t like.

Toni fell silent and let Bruce work. He might have been insulted to know how much she appreciated his way of thinking. It was clear to her that he understood her fear. She was shaken from her thoughts when he asked, “Does this hurt?”

In all honesty, Toni hadn’t even realized he was poking around. “Nope, nerve endings severed in most of my chest. There’s not much feeling anywhere thereabouts. Some of them regrew, but the area within a centimeter of the reactor is all pretty numb.” 

“Hm.” Bruce said, gently pressing, “That must be very difficult for you.”

Toni snorted, “You’d be surprised.” Bruce cocked an eyebrow, “Nope, not going to let you psycho-analyze me.”

“Toni, I’m not a psycho-analyst.”

“You also said you weren’t a medical doctor and yet here we are, and me without my shirt.”

Bruce chucked.

“Oh god, and now you’re pity chuckling. Ugh.” Toni leaned back. 

“That wasn’t a pity chuckle. And do you have any equipment for an x-ray?”

“Hey J?” Toni asked into the ether.

“Yes miss?”

“Can you show the Doctor my diagnostics?”

“Of course.” Within moments the holograms were back, but instead of showing the schematics that Toni had been working on they showed a model. To be more specific, a life-sized hologram on Toni showed up, complete with arc reactor, the entire image would pulse with blood running through veins and the heart beating in time with Toni’s own.

“I had JARVIS start to work on this after Afghanistan. I might not have a medical degree, but I have something better. A computer for a best friend who can monitor me at all times with special attention when I’m in the building.” She slowly stood up and pulled at the hologram. “Obviously, it’s not perfect.” After a moment of fiddling the chest cavity had been expanded. “I’m sure the doctor’s told you that a large portion of my chest and ribs were removed to put this in. I’m mostly worried about this area,” she circled her hand through the hologram near her heart, “I’m worrying about the stress on my system. Nothing has been done to quite this scale and while in some ways it acts as a pacer, I’m still wary.” 

She turned towards Bruce, who was openly staring at her. “What?”

“Did you really do all this in your spare time and without any medical experience?”

Toni stepped back a bit, “Yes? I mean, there’s Jarvis, and he fills in a lot of the blanks.” She smiled at his sensor. “Is this not enough? I just….” She didn’t want to talk about her fear of the hospital, how one fear led to another and the sterile atmosphere, while about as far as you could get from the grungy cave in Afghanistan, couldn’t help but to cause flashbacks.

“No, Toni, this is amazing.” 

She sighed in relief and watched as Bruce went though the hologram, talking to Jarvis in a comfortable manner the belied the months of interaction.

As happy as she was to finally have a doctor look through all of her various ailments, and as happy as she was to see that Bruce, her mental equal, seemed to be on her side, she was still relieved when he went back upstairs. So many years with so few people she could trust made it exhausting to be around other people who weren’t expecting her to just be the life of the party. Anyway, having a close friend get kidnapped and tortured just because of their friendship did cause one to become more cautious about letting people in their lives.

Still, she knew that JARVIS wouldn’t completely let her be… “JARVIS… where’s Pepper?”

“She’s in the Kitchen with Ms. Romanoff.” He sounded pleased, at least as pleased as he could sound. “Would you like me to request she come down to the lab?”

“No,” Toni waved his question aside, “I’m the one in the wrong, even if I’m injured I owe her enough to walk to her.” It was probably time to put on her big girl pants and apologize. 

It was a long walk to the kitchen. At least it felt long. JARVIS was in charge of the elevator and Toni knew that she was always given first priority. She didn’t apologize well. She didn’t have many people that were worth the apologies. 

The doors opened and Toni stepped out. Past the couches and into the kitchen where Pepper and Natasha were having a hushed conversation over a cup of tea. Toni took a moment to study Pepper’s back, shoulders hunched, seeming to protect her.

Toni knocked, not her normal habit, and Pepper’s head shot up. Natasha’s eyes flicked over to Toni before focusing back on Pepper. Clearly, she had known Toni was coming. Probably heard her, the spy had some sort of super-sense and Toni almost wished she could ask about it. But this wasn’t the time, this was the time for Pepper.

“Pepp, can I speak to you?” 

Pepper’s shoulders raised and Toni could tell the moment she steeled herself from the way the suit Pepper was wearing seemed to shift and flow. “What is it Toni.” Her back was still turned to Toni.

This might make it easier. Disappointing people was always easier when they didn’t have a face.

“I’m sorry.” She had nothing else to say. If she tried to explain that it had been a difficult day and that she was being forced to deal with months of mistakes piling on top of each other… it would all ring hollow. 

The silence reverberated. 

Pepper turned. Tear tracks marked her blotchy red face, it’s the curse of the gingers. “Is that all you can say?”

Toni’s eyes closed as she thought about everything she could say. Eyes opened, “You hate my speeches. I can’t monologue out of this. I’m sorry. I fucked up.”

Natasha seemed to slip out of the room.

Pepper stood up and moved towards her. Neither of them were physically demonstrative, especially not with each other, but in the moments like this, they were willing to break their normal mold. At least, try to break their normal mold. Pepper’s hands went out like she was going to give Toni a hug, but Toni’s arms, the small amount that could be seen, were an angry red, and covered in welts. They both knew it was more than just her arms, there was no way Pepper would be able to forget the bullet radiating from Toni’s side.

Instead of a hug, Pepper put her hands lightly on both of Toni’s arms. “You have to stop shutting me out.”

“I know… I… all I have are excuses and you deserve better than that.”

“No, Toni, look at me.” Toni looked up into Pepper’s eyes, “You aren’t used to having to think about other people as people. I get that. But I was with you when you came back from Afghanistan. I saw you hanging from the wall when your face looked like someone had used it as a punching bag.”

“Two people actually,” Toni muttered.

Pepper rolled her eyes, “Semantics. I was there watching you die. You can’t expect I’m going to be untouched by that.”

Toni swallowed, “Okay, what can I do.”

“Just, give me some leeway for a while. I’m going to want to check on you.”

“Can I just install JARVIS on your phone? He can give you constant updates.” Toni said as if she was offering Pepper the world.

“That can be part of it, but!” and she held up a finger to stave off Toni’s cheer of appreciation. “I’m still going to want to talk to you personally. You can’t get away from that.”

Toni nodded, “Fine, that I can handle. I’ll have my assistant schedule it.” Her grin was reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat.

“Fine, I’ll call your assistant.”

Toni’s grin faltered as Pepper stepped back to the table to pick up a napkin to wipe off her face. Her glorious makeup covered face. “Wait, Pepper, what do you mean?”

“I’ve found you another assistant.”

“What, Pepper. When?”

“He starts ASAP and is only in charge until you can get back to actually running your company.”

“He?” Toni asked with trepidation. Mind in overdrive trying to figure out who Pepper could have asked with Rhodey working for the government and Clint on assignments. 

“I’ve already told him to report to your lab at 8 am tomorrow morning.”

Toni gripped the railing as she descended the stairs. Each step felt like another step towards the hell awaiting her at the bottom. Finally within view of the glass walls of her laboratory and she was filled with dread. There weren’t that many places where she felt completely safe and comfortable in her own skin and the lab was one of them. To have it invaded by a new assistant, much less someone she hadn’t had a chance to vet? Everything about the situation made her nervous.

Rounding the final corner of the staircase down she looked up, with bated breath, to see what kind of person awaited her… There was no one there other than Pepper, who was lounging on one of the wheeled chairs Toni had made sure had a healthy population in her lab. 

Jarvis opened the door for her and she stepped in to hear the gentle cadence of Pepper’s voice. “Okay, so what does next Thursday look like?”

“I’ve taken the opportunity to continue to clear the Ms’s schedule. However, I’m worried that at that point the lack of public appearances will have become concerning to the press and I’ve added in a spa day to which she will be obviously chauffeured as well as a visit to her stylist. The parlor I’ve decided on is very discreet, and the Miss will be able to enjoy their spa services.”

“Wonderful, now, let’s talk SI. Has anything changed?”

Toni almost started laughing. She had spent so much time worrying about the whole situation. She should have just trusted Pepper. After all, even when the woman was angry at her, she still had Toni’s best interst in heart. There would be no way that Pepper would have introduced a stranger into all of Toni’s crazy without at least giving Toni a heads up.

“Well, doesn’t this look cozy.”

Pepper looked up, eyes sparkling, a smile starting to grace her lips before she caught herself, and schooled her expression. Toni clearly wasn’t out of the doghouse yet. “I hear that my schedule has been mostly cleared at least through Thursday…”

“Which means that Jarvis is in charge of what you actually do day-to-day.”

“I have consulted with Ms. Potts as well as Doctor Banner, and we all believe it is in your best interest to be limited to leisure activities. Bed rest, limited time in the lab, and lots of fluids. These parameters can be adjusted depending on your willingness to take the prescribed medication.”

Ah, and there it was, the catch. Jarvis was going to be the opposite of a slave driver. This recovery was going to drive her crazy.

And it only got worse. “If you do not comply with these restrictions through just my recommendation, I have asked the other members of your team to help out where I physically cannot.” Yup, Toni scowled at that information. It was clear that if she didn’t do what Jarvis asked, she was going to be forced into it by the teammates she was not so fond of. After all these years Jarvis knew that Toni could talk Clint into most anything. So, with a few quick calculations, Toni realized that Cap and Thor would probably be the most likely to get called up. Natasha had too high a possibility for bloodshed. 

She looked at Pepper, who was smiling brightly. It was the kind of smile that promised love and retribution in equal measure. 

“You promise you’re coming back to work for me once I can be back at SI?” Toni asked, “I’m a little scared to see what my life would be like if Jarvis ran all of it.”

Pepper cocked a hip, “Well now I’m tempted to say no.” She grinned at Toni’s groan, and made a sharp turn on her heel before heading upstairs to leave. 

Toni’s imprisonment (yes she knew that was an extreme description but she felt it was extremely accurate) wasn’t as bad as she had first feared. Jarvis didn’t stop anyone from visiting her, and even restricted who would be allowed to visit. There was no worry about being plagued by the guilty eyes of the teammates who only thought she was worth talking to know that they knew she had played two different roles in their lives. 

But she had plenty of time sitting around shooting the shit with Clint, practicing their insults and trying to up the ante on the ridiculous pet names. Clint’s ‘mission’ had been successful, and Rhodey – as the War Machine – was filling in for her, so she had plenty of time to hunker down with him to get caught up. She needled him into telling her all about the less classified missions (and she wisely didn’t tell him that she already knew most of the details from her snooping around the governments infrastructure). Best of all were the days where Pepper could telework. The two of them would sit in the common room with something banal playing on tv while they both worked on their Starkpads. Those were the best days because it was all the more likely to Clint to vault over a couch and settle down next for her, or for Rhodey to wander into the room and sit on the overstuffed seat to ‘keep an eye on her.’ There was nothing Toni liked more that being able to interact with all of her favorite people at one time. 

It almost felt like she was holding court. It made it easier when one of her other teammates would wander into the room. There was a natural rhythm to it. One of her teammates would walk into the room, and greet whoever they saw first. After all, everyone was on good terms with each other except for Toni. But then would come the shocked pause. For so long it had been so rare to see Toni actually use the tower, that no one seemed to expect she would start now. 

Much less that she would be sitting around wearing oversized worn out clothing when they had only seen her dressed to the nines. Her attitude must have seemed strange to them. After all, she had spent months making them think she was made of steel and ice, completely out of touch with normal humanity, unable to bend or break. And then there she was half-asleep against Rhodey’s side.

So yes, they had to deal with her being in the common areas. Toni had to fight down a flash of emotion; either fear, or embarrassment, or discomfort when that happened. Everything felt forced. For a brief second, the comfortable environment the seemed to cocoon her would evaporate. And then that moment would break, usually because one of her dutiful protectors would make a comment or joke. Oddly enough, the rate of people sitting down to join them was about 50%. Toni wasn’t going to question it. Those people were her teammates and it no longer made sense to distance herself from them. 

That did, however, mean that she suddenly had a front row seat to Steve’s sometimes biting humor, Natasha’s surprising empathy, and Bruce’s ability to talk anything with anyone. There was nothing stranger than hearing Pepper and Bruce bond over the kickboxing instructor from just around the block.

The part that still felt like imprisonment was her inability to work. With a few days home behind her belt, she assumed that she would be feeling better. Day three, however, led up to her arms feeling like they had locked up. Leaving her unable to drink even her cup of coffee without grimacing. 

“Shall I call Doctor Banner to assist you, Ms?” Jarvis asked, as she struggled for the third straight minute to get yet another old concert shirt over her head. They happened to be this weeks’ pajamas and she finally sighed, letting her arms drop as gracefully as she could while keeping them from aching up a storm. 

“Thanks J, but no. Everyone’s just gonna have to deal with my pajamas today.” She didn’t care one way or another about the pajamas, but… She had been self-sufficient for so long. Asking someone for help with something as basic as changing her clothes felt like she would be admitting to a weakness. And while they might try, Toni still wasn’t comfortable with most of her teammates. 

She gingerly made her way through the hallways, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t run into anybody before grabbing breakfast and heading to her lab. It was a long time habit. Running away whenever things weren’t going well.

The habit started when she was a child, running away from her father when a project didn’t go well. And it continued. College led to her hiding colds and the flu. The flu had caught her so badly one time, that Rhodey found her laying on the ground in one of the public MIT labs, having gotten just a little too weak to make it to the couches. 

And this wasn’t a day where she wanted pity.

Unfortunately, pity was what she was going to get. Natasha and Steve were in the kitchen; Steve at the oven working on the last of a formidable stack of pancakes, while Natasha was leaning up against the counter happily drinking her coffee with her eyes trained firmly on Steve’s ass. 

Toni girded herself, pulling her shoulders up and putting on a carefree expression. “Hey spangles, mind grabbing me a coffee mug while you’re taking over the corner?” 

Without looking away from the pancakes, Steve reached up, grabbed a mug, and even filled it with coffee before holding it out to Toni. She waited a second, and he put it on the counter in front of her. Thank goodness, she didn’t want to have to explain her reasons for not letting people hand her things.

She tried to hold in her grimace as she extended her arms to grab the mug. And it was totally worth it. The warm, soothing aroma of the coffee drifted up and she felt her shoulders relax from the ‘stick-up-her-ass’ position they seemed to take when around the ‘public.’ 

“Are you okay?” Steve asked, having actually taken his attention off of the pancakes for long enough to see her wince.

“Well I have a few bruised ribs, a bullethole that makes walking difficult, bruises over most of my body, and some pretty severe burns on the my arms. But yeah, fucking peachy.” Immediately she wished that she could that back. It would be easy enough to blame her aches and pains, but really that bitterness was the holdover from the pretty recent end to her one sided cold war. 

“Join us for breakfast.” Steve asked, as if there was a plan to make sure that she got some real calories during the day.

“I think I’m…” 

“That wasn’t a question.” Natasha said lightly. Toni felt like she was being sized up again, never a fun task when the Black Widow was on the other side. Especially considering that all the other ‘size ups’ found Toni lacking. This time was different though, both the bruises and the histories were out in the open. So Toni didn’t put up her normal fuss, pretending it wasn’t just because she was exhausted, and gingerly sat down in the chair closest to her. 

There was light chatter around the table, with the occasional attempt to get her to join the conversation. But, everyone seemed to understand that she really needed time. She had to admit it was kind of nice, the way everyone interacted. Previously, she had always had to run off, always trying to keep up the perfectly imperfect exterior. Also, the pancakes were delicious.

Toni was truly exhausted. While she had, finally, mostly recovered from the beating, it didn’t mean she was anywhere near 100%. According to the good doctor, the arc reactor wasn’t causing any more trouble, but her ribs would need to continue being wrapped for at least another week. All she wanted to do was wander around the tower in sweats, allowing any sleep schedule she had to be screwed to hell as she mainlined coffee and bantered with JARVIS while working on something mechanical. However, duty called, and duty demanded that she squeeze herself into the grey dress that draped dangerously over her curves. 

True to form, she charmed the pants off of the Senator and his wife, the hosts of the event. It was all to try to smooth over some overlying tension between the government and the Avengers. Having such a powerful force seemed to worry people in power. Luckily for them, having Toni Stark as a backer gave everyone a liaison between the two groups. It was never quite easy, but she always managed to quell the worst of the tension. 

Well before the party was even beginning to end Toni loudly announced her intent to move a small party elsewhere. It was quite obvious that this ‘small party’ was only to be made up of Toni herself, and a man and a woman. Both the man and woman were tipsy and Toni was a little punch-drunk (never actually drunk in public, not since right after Afghanistan.) and they piled into the car, Toni directing Happy back to the tower. 

Toni almost dragged her guests into the tower, holding their hands tightly, head thrown back in laughter. It was an image mostly crafted for the tabloids, it would keep up appearances. Even once in the building she kept the up the enthusiasm. They piled into the elevator and Toni enjoyed the opportunity to kiss both of the incredibly attractive socialites. However once the elevator doors opened on her floor, Toni pulled back. “Sorry folks, this is the end of my part of the evening’s activities. I do however have some non-disclosure forms that I need both of you to sign.” 

The pair looked a little confused, a combination of booze and hormones making this even more surreal, but they still followed behind her, still holding hands. Toni smiled over her shoulder, “Rumors of my promiscuity are greatly exaggerated.” 

She pointed them to chairs in front of the desk while she searched for the forms. She procured them with a flourish and started to explain, “This is fairly basic. You aren’t allowed to tell anyone or anything about what you saw in my residence including people, technology or other objects. You’re welcome to say that you fucked me, though I am reminding you now,” she looked at the guy who was entranced by the outline of her breasts, “that I will not be joining you this evening, however if you would like, I will provide you with a room in the tower. If you accept I will provide you with everything you need for a lovely evening as long as you recognize that you will be given only limited access to my home and will be expected to exit the tower once you leave the room. You must be gone by noon tomorrow.” 

They both nodded and signed the papers. Toni gave them directions to the room, knowing that JARVIS would make sure they didn’t go where they weren’t supposed to, and called to have a bottle of champagne sent down. 

She finally gave in and rubbed the area around her eyes, trying not to smudge the makeup that Pepper had worked so hard on. While she used to love the glamorous parties, they had grown... irritating over time. She jumped when she looked up to see Natasha standing next to one of the chairs that had just been occupied by the girl. 

“I am nowhere near drunk enough to deal with this right now.” Toni murmured, standing up and heading towards the lounge. She found Clint’s ability to be silent amusing, however Natasha was still classified as a threat and the idea that she could get the jump on her like that caused the adrenaline to pump. The mental and physical exhaustion that had her brain clamoring for bed was silenced. At least the physical exhaustion was gone, she could still feel the headache forming just behind her right eyebrow. 

“Is that something you always do?” Natasha asked, trailing after Toni. She said it light and Toni almost didn’t think before replying,

“Yeah, ever since Afghanistan. Can’t do much if I don’t want anyone to see the reactor and frankly anything that could happen wouldn’t be worth it in the end.” 

“Thought you were a playgirl.” Natasha jabbed. 

Toni could feel the muscles in her shoulders begin to tense, so she increased her pace, glad when she could finally see her private bar. She started the process of unlocking it while she calmly said, “Not since Afghanistan,” more quietly she said, “I think you understand the value of people’s impressions.” She started pouring herself a glass of scotch, the one that had been treated to show if a foreign substance had been introduced. She refused to look at Natasha, it would give her too much power, “tried once, after that, with ... well, like I said, it just wouldn’t be worth it.” 

They stood in silence for a second before Toni tossed back the drink, poured a second one and locked the booze away. She missed the flash of concern on Natasha’s face, and when she turned around the spy was gone. 

Toni wrote it off and headed for the lab. Her mind might not be working right now, but her body had decided that sleep wasn’t an option. She could at least beat the shit out of some titanium gold alloy, start getting it shaped for an updated suit.

In the end, life didn’t seem to Toni to change much. At some point Clint came back from his mission, and Toni assumed that he told the others to more painful parts of her past because Steve couldn’t look her in the eye, preferring to stare at her feet. He reminded Toni of a puppy who knew it was going to be disciplined. Even stranger than Captain Purity, was Thor, who had begun to stand whenever she entered the room, sometimes bowing deeply. If it had come from anyone else, Toni would have recognized it as mocking, but from Thor it seemed genuine. She was never quite sure how to act after the vaguely deferential treatment. Most people stopped treating her like anything other than annoying after a short conversation. 

She tended to ignore it, ignore a problem and it will go away. She had heard it enough as a child, when she was generally the problem, and decided it was good advice. She still spent most of her time in the lab, though she had moved a lot of the equipment from the ‘secret lab’ to her main lab. 

The few changes that she noticed were things like Clint suggesting that they move their weekly spars to the main gym, and being dragged to the occasional communal dinner. Sometimes Clint would wheedle her into staying for movie night, where they were suspiciously always watching one of her favorite movies. She tried not to overthink it. It was one thing if JARVIS was queueing it up, or if Clint suggested it to try to lure her in, but if it were one of the other it might destabilize what had become a comfortable distance. 

She still wandered around the common areas at all hours to grab some fresh coffee if her maker in the lab wasn’t working. Except instead of paying attention to who was around her, trying to make everyone feel awkward, she was more likely to wander up in sweats, hair mussed, nose buried in a tablet, shuffling around, mind clearly elsewhere. She had also started grabbing food out of the fridge, knowing that leftovers were now open to her. However, due to her mind not working at 100% when she generally ventured upstairs, she didn’t notice that there was always hot coffee and single portions of food set up for her. 

The biggest difference she noticed was JARVIS’s interactions with her teammates. Before, she knew, that JARVIS had kept interactions to minimum with everyone other than Clint and Bruce, but Toni soon noticed that Steve was asking questions if he was confused. JARVIS would keep up a light commentary with Thor.

Toni adjusted to it the way she adjusted to most of the stuff she dealt with, ignored it until it became a problem, and only working to fix it once it was a real problem. 

She still locked herself in her lab a lot, working on projects for SHIELD, the Avengers, the Iron Man Suit or something for Stark Industries. Instead of hiding her inventions or giving them to Fury to pass on, she started to leave them in the living room or kitchen, knowing that it would get to whoever it needed to get to eventually. This led to a handwritten thank you note, a back-breaking hug, a quick thank-you scribbled on the corner of a page of equations with something circled in red, and a grudging thanks. 

Clint thanked her in the same was as he always did, by kicking her ass and snarking at her. 

They were in the normal gym after yet another Board meeting where Toni had bitched out a couple of the members who were still debating if shutting down weapons was still the best decision. Toni bounced on the balls of her feet, hands already wrapped and ready; eyes steadily watching Clint as he casually walked across the mat. 

She watched as he settled into his stance, calmly breathing in and out, focused as she only was while sparring or in the lab. 

He clearly wasn’t moving first so she put out a tentative jab. He moved, but they were quickly off, throwing punches, jabbing at the ribs with a kick added here and there (mostly for flair because let’s be honest, they were basically useless if you weren’t magic like Natasha). Clint managed to sweep her off her feet and she landed hard. He quickly crowded her, starting to count to ten. 

Toni couldn’t hear the numbers. The world was shrinking to her inability to move. She started to struggle in earnest, only vaguely noticing the way that Clint immediately pulled off and moved back. She came fully to her senses once she was on her hands and knees, breathing heavily, Clint on the opposite end of the mat, looking at her like she might be radioactive. 

“You okay? We can stop...”

“No, no,” Toni said rolling herself to her feet. “I’m good, let’s keep going.” 

Clint made the first move, a gentle swipe to knock her arms out of the way. Toni liked to think that she had gotten better over the months of practice and even with a minor breakdown she was insulted that Clint would be going easy on her again. She moved with the force against her arm and slammed her foot into his ribs. She knew that he would take this as an ‘I mean business’ kick. 

“Oh it’s on, butterlips.”

“Butterlips? I can see how on it is Barton.” They both cut out the banter and got down to business. 

For a whole three minutes there was no talking and the only noises in the gym were the harsh breaths and the sound of fists hitting cloth covered flesh. 

Clint went and hit Toni’s mostly recovered ribs which caused her to flinch but in the two seconds she saw her opening and thrust her fist towards Clint’s face. It made sickening contact and for one moment both of them froze, Clint’s arms still outstretched and Toni’s still in place right next to Clint’s face. 

Toni retracted her fists as soon as the blood started dripping, “Oh Shit.”

Clint moved to touch his nose, hissing when he made contact. “Damn Toni.” 

“I’m so sorry, shit,” Toni knew what a broken bone sounded like and started to freak out. She made an abortive move towards her towel until she realized her shirt was closer “JARVIS.” She yelled out running towards the shirt.

“Toni, calm down.” Clint said, leaning his head back to try and stop the flow of blood.

“JARVIS, get Banner down her. Clint needs medical attention!”

“Toni stop.” Clint had one hand up to his nose, the other trying the keep Toni from doing more damage as she was accidentally smothering him with her tank top. “Natasha can take care of it.” 

“But...”

Out of the corner of her eye Toni saw someone drop down from the ceiling. Moment of panic forgotten, “How long has she been there?” Turning to Natasha, “How long have you been watching us? I thought it was Clint’s specialty to creep on people from the ceiling.”

Natasha gracefully leapt into the ring, looked at Clint’s nose and without hesitating, she pressed her palms together and pulled them down Clint’s face. Clint grunted in pain.

“Shit Tasha, little warning next time?”

She rolled her eyes, “I warned you in Belgrade and now your nose isn’t straight.” 

Toni watched the back and forth and felt the panic rising again. “How can you be so cavalier? I just broke your fucking nose?” 

“It’s not like you meant to.” Natasha said.

“Yeah, good shot by the way.” Clint said, running a finger lightly up and down his newly fixed nose.

“I thought you were going to block it.”

“Yeah, I figured. That is kind of how this works. Hey if you don’t mind I’m gonna go shower and make sure Tash didn’t fuck it up this time.” He fake glared at Natasha before nodding at Toni and running off.

“Don’t drown in the shower Barton.” 

“It’ll be difficult Tasha but I think I can manage.”

Toni turned from Clint’s retreating back, to Natasha who was just looking at her.

There was a silent moment, Toni expecting Natasha to do something. 

“Will you stop that?” She finally asked.

“Stop what?” Was the response. The tone was cavalier. Natasha was a spy, she had to understand Toni’s hesitance, yet seemed to feel like ignoring their entire relationship. Toni wasn’t going to have that.

“Looking at me like I’m a rabbit and you’re a wolf.”

Another pause. “Do you want to learn how to choke someone with your thighs and flip them over?”

“The Thighs of Death? You’re really going to teach me that?”

Natasha shrugged,

“Sure, why not.” Toni agreed

Natasha looked up, “JARVIS could you ask Steve or Thor to join us? Whichever one is unoccupied.”

Toni didn’t shrink but exhaled harshly, “Do we have to get one of them involved?”

Natasha titled her head, “I can’t teach you without a model.” She seemed to look into Toni’s soul. Toni shrank back a little. “You know that we are aware of your full situation now. Knowing that puts everything else into perspective. We want our chance to meet you on your terms, and get to know you without just your public persona.”

Toni raised her eyebrow in disbelief. “Really?” She asked loaded with sarcasm, “What happened to me being empty and worthless, a child who discards toys?”

“That impression was made without complete information. You are a better actress than I had been warned to expect. I’m still waiting for enough information to properly understand you. For now though, I’m going to do what I should have done, and trust Clint’s opinion until I’ve been able to properly make my own.” She stepped closer and almost whispered, “Those of us that have been unmade and made again are all the stronger for it.” She stepped back as Steve entered the room. “You might want to wash the blood off your hands.”

Toni’s eyes widened as she looked at her right fist with its smattering of blood. “Right.” She went over to the sink to rinse off the blood just managing to hear Natasha greeting Steve. 

“Good Afternoon Miss Stark.”

Toni grinned a little at the polite response, the smile coming more easily than she would have expected. Then again she was still facing the sink, “Just call me Toni, it’s easier.”

“Alright, good afternoon, Toni.”

Natasha cut off their… not-even-a-conversation , “now Steve, if you don’t mind standing here,” Natasha moved him to the middle of the mat, pushing Toni back a little, “I’m going to use you for a little demonstration.” 

Steve nodded, “Sure.” 

Toni watched his relaxed positioning, suddenly unsure if he knew what was about to happen. She didn’t think Natasha had explained anything...

Natasha smiled sweetly had Steve, “Thanks so much for this.” Placing his hand on her shoulder. They stood like that for a moment and Steve was starting to look confused, when Natasha looked back at Toni, then used the hand to leverage herself up, wrap her thighs around Steve’s neck, using the momentum to drag him to the floor. 

“Toni, that’s how it’s done.” 

Toni took one look at Natasha’s still mostly bland smile, completely calm and collected. Then she looked at Steve’s face, Steve who was never ruffled by anyone, had the deer-in-the-headlights expression. Toni couldn’t help it, she fell over laughing. 

Toni enjoyed learning the thighs of death. Over time she had learned how to distribute her weight to bring down even Thor. Once she had learned how to bring down someone bigger than her, Natasha decided that the two of them should spar. Toni had gulped, but gotten right down to it. It was obvious that Natasha was going easy on her, but considering Natasha had been given some fucked up Soviet version of the super soldier serum, Toni wasn’t going to argue. She still left the gym every day tired and bruised. But always in a good mood.

On one particular day, after a particularly difficult, but fun workout, and after the post workout shower, Toni went to the kitchen. She rarely cooked for the whole group, but she was in a good mood. She knew that Bruce always made exotic foods, the curries that he had learned to make in India were his personal favorite. Home cooking was in then. She started to fix up the vegetables for a stew. Humming just under her breath, she smiled at the captain when he walked into the room. 

He sat down at the table and other than the sound of vegetables being chopped there was silence. 

“I lost Bucky in the war, and I’m pretty sure it was my fault.” 

Toni stopped chopping, not sure how to deal with this information.

“I brought him into the commandos, I couldn’t reach him fast enough...”

“Captain.... Steve.” Toni turned around to face him. “It wasn’t your fault. If there’s one thing I learned from my father, it’s that there was nothing you could change on that train.” 

Steve grimaced. “I know that now, but... Knowing and believing can be two very different things.” He sighed heavily. “This is, I guess this is my way of saying I understand, I understand why you lied to us about Iron Man. If I could go back and protect Bucky I would, no question.”

Toni turned back to the cutting board, and started to chop up a few carrots. “I asked Clint to take care of a lot of the messy details. I’m not sure what he told you and what he didn’t. When I was in Afghanistan there was another prisoner there with me. His name was Yinsen and he saved my life. He was one of the first people other than Rhodey that I had ever considered a true friend. He died to save me. Every day, every day, I think of him and how...” she couldn’t continue. “My reason for going through that farce, of making myself the enemy in my own home, it was because I knew that I had already been the reason one of my only friends had died. I wasn’t going to let that happen to anyone else.”

There was a pause. Toni resumed chopping while Steve stared at his hands. She knew, given his personality, that he was trying to find a way to apologize that she wouldn’t shut down. “So what of the more painful parts of my life did Clint end up telling you about?”

She heard him breathe in sharply. Clearly Clint hadn’t spared many details. “We know the basics of what happened in Afghanistan. He told us how your body reacted to the palladium poisoning, with some amount of detail. Clint really cares about you, I think he wanted to make all of us realize how awful we’d been treating you.... It worked. Toni I know that you don’t want to hear it...”

“That’s right Steve. Saying I’m sorry can’t take back the fact that my Dad spent more of my life looking for you than he did spending time with me. I’m sorry doesn’t change the fact that the man that acted as if he was my father tried to kill me, and it doesn’t change the fact that you didn’t like me while I was trying to make you not like me. We’re good.”

“Toni.” She felt him move next to her. “I know that you don’t want to deal with this, it’s one of things you share with your father. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, but I need to say something. After everything I’ve learned, I need to apologize for underestimating you, for judging you on first impressions and based off of your father.”

Toni’s hands paused again. “You know how to use a knife?” She looked up and smiled weakly when he nodded. “Start chopping up the chicken. I’m frying it, I’m assuming you know about how big to cut the pieces.” He pushed up his sleeves, and started cleaning the chicken. 

There was silence for a moment before Steve started talking. “When I was little, I was sick a lot. I spent a lot of time with my mother in the apartment. I watched her cook everything that we ate, and eventually she realized that she might as well let me help. An asthma attack wouldn’t ruin any food, and well...” He continued talking about his life with his mother. Toni traded his stories with stories of her own, not any of the sad ones, but the ones where her mother taught her how to bake, some of the unfortunate parties that she had ruined on purpose or accidentally. 

At some point the conversation dwindled and Toni sat at the table pouring over some work on a tablet, not even realizing that she had forgotten the food. 

When she had first gone to sit down at the table, Steve had just quietly taken over fixing the food. 

Toni finally came back from her work once everyone started to filter into the kitchen. She looked around and instead of leaving to go to her lab, set down her tablet and let everyone sit around her. 

There had been yet another Avengers mission where some whacked out lunatic decided to attack New York city. The good news is that the threat had been neutralized before too much loss of life happened. The bad news is that the threat hadn’t been neutralized before he could turn the Lady Liberty into a mean green killing machine. She had stepped off her pedestal and was on her way to the main city and there is no way to spin a bunch of Superheros fighting the Statue of Liberty in a good way for the Superheroes. At the very least, Toni sighed, anyone who was anti-superhero would have enough footage to prove that the heathen Avengers were unpatriotically attacking the Statue of Liberty. They would stop attacking the “financial backer” and her heathen ways. 

The biggest problem with the fight was, now it was her job to clean it all up, metaphorically speaking. She ruffled her hands through her hair as Pepper applied makeup to the bits of her that had been bruised up and couldn’t be covered by the snug red and gold dress, for once floor length. 

“Toni,” Pepper sighed, having just fixed Toni’s hair.

“Sorry Pepp, I just... I was in the middle of a new upgrade.”

“Well, you’ll be in good company tonight.” Pepper offered, knowing how much Toni hated the charade of pretending to be the party girl, and knowing that it was for Peppers’ own benefit. 

“Yeah, thank god everyone knows that Clint is my babysitter otherwise this would be aaaaawful.” She drew out the long A. “Am I ready to go yet?”

Pepper smudged a little more foundation on Toni’s cheeks before adding just a little bit of blush. “Yes Miss Stark. I think you look acceptable.”

Toni stood up and twirled in front of the full length mirror. “Acceptable Pepp, I’m wounded. At the very least I look decent....For me,” she added at the last minute. 

Pepper followed her out of the room and to the common area where she would be picking up Clint. Walking into the room she saw broad shoulders and threw gold cufflinks at the back, “Hey Clint, these are so everyone knows you’re my bitch...” The cufflinks hit the mans’ back and he turned around to pick them up. “Oh shit, sorry Steve... nice digs, what’s the occasion?” 

He walked over and handed the cufflinks back, “We all... I mean, all of us talked, and we decided to accompany you to the gala tonight.” 

Toni bounced the cufflinks in her hands, “Really? You want to come tonight?”

She looked around the room to see Thor lounging around in his normal Asgardian wear, Bruce looking fidgety and uncomfortable and Natasha laying luxuriously on the couch in the pink dress that Toni had bought her. 

Bruce stood up to answer. “You’ve taken care of all of the press so far, and with all the work that you’ve been doing it just didn’t seem fair to let you...”

Clint walked into the room, rolling his eyes, “What Dr. Hulk is trying to say is when all you did was hide in your lab, party it up and handle PR it didn’t seem like a big deal to let you do everything, but knowing that you’re getting your ass kicked on a weekly basis, creating shit for SHIELD and your company, keeping up your crazy persona and doing all the PR... it just didn’t seem fair.”

Toni smiled, “Be my bitch tonight Barton?” She tossed the cufflinks to him.

He caught the cufflinks and went to put them on, adept at the movement, having been to so many functions with Toni. 

Thor finally stood, walking over and bowing deeply, “I would be honored if I could be your escort to the feast.” 

Toni smiled gleefully, “Well won’t I be the belle of the ball tonight. Let’s go.” She took his hand and waited for everyone to get up before walking to the limo. 


End file.
